Ashes To Ashes: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (10 page)

Is it possible to kill with the mind?
Millions upon millions of modern humans believe it possible to heal
with the mind and to sicken with the mind. The entire science of
psychosomatic medicine is built upon that belief. And how many
medical doctors with no interest whatever in psychosomatic or
psychic/religious phenomena have consigned a medical prognosis to
the patient's own "will to live"?

Is it possible, then, to
fabricate a thesis that may explain a purely psychic power that can
and does manipulate matter? I think so. I have been toying with one
for years. And I need no supernatural laboratory in which to
examine it. It is, actually, implicit in virtually every discovery
of science during the Age of Einstein. So I find my anchor not in
superstition and black magic but in the basic modern tenets of
physical science.

Is it possible to kill and/or to otherwise
manipulate matter with the mind? I say yes, with the shamans; yes,
with the witches; yes, with Jesus and Gautama and all the mystics;
yes, with Einstein and Bohr and Planck; yes, with modern
medicine.

The full exposition of my thesis would fill
a book of its own, so I give you here only the maxims from which it
operates:

Pure energy is the
underlying reality of the space-time continuum; in its purest form,
energy is never more than wave-potential.

The potential of energy
manifests as matter imbedded within structured energy fields that
themselves result from fluctuations within the energy
constant.

Consciousness is an energy constant,
expressing as wave-potential.

Self-consciousness, or
Knowingness, is a fluctuation within a conscious continuum.
Fluctuation within a consciousness field may be produced by
“thought” and/or may be expressed as “thought” inside
space-time.

Since fluctuations within
the energy constant are the source of all "matter" and since
consciousness itself is an energy constant influenced by thought,
it therefore holds that thoughts may produce matter and may be said
to be capable of physically influencing matter.

Is it possible to kill with the mind? Do not
ever bet your life that it is not.

Chapter Eleven: Rendezvous

"When you think of LA, think of a nation."
Someone once said that in print, I don't remember who, but the
reference was to life-style, multiplicity of cultures and
industries, the human equation.

When I think of LA, I think of a county,
because it is literally impossible to separate the city proper from
the sprawl of neighboring communities that crowd the coastal plain
from the San Gabriel Mountains to the Pacific—and, actually, I
guess I think of two counties, because Disneyland and Knotts Berry
Farm and the charming beach communities of the south coast are in
Orange County—well, really, four, five, or six counties when you
start trying to make the cut, because you have to also include
parts of San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, and Ventura
counties to really think LA.

But if you just consider
LA County by itself, we are talking more than seventy-five
incorporated cities encompassing some four thousand square miles
and a population that exceeds that of more than forty of our
states, seventy-five miles of coastline, nine hundred square miles
of desert. Forget all the bad press and one-line jokes, it's the
most interesting big city in the world; smog and freeway jams are a
small enough price to pay for the privilege of calling this area
home. But I guess it's the geographical contrasts that I like best:
mountains, valleys, canyons, beaches, deserts, all intermingled
like disparate pieces of a jigsaw puzzle yet so harmoniously
blended into urban/suburban environments.

I give you this not as a hype to immigration
(one of the more common bumper stickers lately seen on local
freeways reads: Welcome to California—Now Go Home), but to relate
you properly to the scene of Karen Highland's disappearance.

If you have been thinking of Bel Air as a
typical urban neighborhood but just a bit richer than most, then
you cannot really visualize the problem. Bel Air is a jumble of
hills and canyons, twisting roads and near-vertical lanes and
driveways set into the Santa Monica Mountains. Leave one of the
main drives, of which there are very few, and you are in a maze of
rambling, twisting, plunging, sometimes corkscrewing country lanes
with no apparent logic and often no obvious way out.

It can be trying enough feeling your way
through Bel Air in broad daylight and with a neighborhood map; try
it on a moonless night with the wind beginning to whip a bit and
scudding clouds cloaking the hilltops and misting the roadways.

Yet Beverly Hills is a
stone's throw east, UCLA and Westwood just across Sunset Boulevard
to the south, the San Fernando Valley with its million-plus
population over the hills to the north. Due west is absolutely
zilch, though—nowhere, nothingness, the great spine of the Santa
Monicas—wilderness.

Kalinsky was understandably upset. A person
could disappear into that nighttime environment and never be seen
again except as a pile of bleached bones accidentally discovered
months or years later by a backpacker.

I was upset, too, primarily because of the
questionable emotional state of my client. But there are crazies
in the land, too, and no one likes to think of any woman wandering
around alone in the night in any part of LA.

I had no idea whatever as to where the other
searchers were looking, how many were looking, or if there was any
particular logic to the search. Apparently Kalinsky was remaining
on the premises, both to anchor the party, which was still in
progress, by now loudly so and centered around the lounge off the
patio, and to serve as headquarters contact for the search
operation.

I later learned that the security force
numbered a dozen men and that they were in constant radio
communication with each other, so I assume in hindsight that some
concerted plan of action was in place.

I didn't know about Doc Powell. He was off
and running even before I cleared Karen's apartment, which I
abandoned wrapped in a towel. By the time I got to my room and into
my own clothing, he had a good five-minute jump on me.

So, as I said, I didn't know what the hell
was really

happening around me. I went straight to the
Maserati, liberated a Walther PPK 9mm pistol, which I customarily
store in a trick floorboard compartment and which I now placed on
the seat beside me, and went cruising with no particular route in
mind.

Don't ask why I wanted the gun. It was a
dark, misty night and I was in alien territory seeking a needle in
a haystack; maybe the Walther gave me a feeling of power, a
refutation of the impotence creeping through me.

I was worried, yes. But I tried to focus the
emotion and put it to work for me, maybe to highlight and sensitize
some vaguely realized aspect of consciousness—or, to put it in
popular lingo, I was "going for vibes."

Trouble with that is, you seldom know which
"vibes" to trust. I cruised aimlessly along Bellagio Drive for a
couple of wasted minutes, then just gave the Maserati her head.
Almost instantly she did a U-turn in a broad driveway and went back
past the Highland estate and onto Stone Canyon Road.

But hell, it was pitch black out there, the
headlights forming a well-defined cone extending into mistville.
The compass was showing a heading of generally north with an
occasional swing to NNW. I had gone several minutes past any
lighted structures when suddenly we veered up a little lane and,
seconds after that, into a dead end.

I sat there for a moment, wondering just
what the hell had brought me there, then I got out and walked
around the car a couple of times before venturing on.

I was in the wilds, pal,
pure wilds, and in a stygian, vapory darkness that hungrily
swallowed the pathetic little beam from my pencil-flash. But I had
found a trail, and it seemed to be curving gently upward along one
of the many canyons that characterize the topography of that
area.

I paused a couple of times to wonder if I
was nuts or what to be out there staggering about the darkened
countryside—this, to show you how fine and uncertain the
extrasensory influence can be—and wondering how much more rope I
was willing to give this particular vibration.

But then I had a rush and a wild chill
tickling my spine, and I knew that I was on target.

I found her a moment later, crumpled across
the trail, weeping like a lost child, something wet and sticky and
odorous soaking the chiffon dress.

I found the doc, too, in her arms, his head
bashed in and obviously all the life bashed out of him.

No psychic killing, that one.

It stunned me, I mean really stunned me in
all the fine ramifications of the event.

I have told you that I was no more than five
minutes behind Powell, then I had wandered for maybe another two or
three minutes before finally homing-in on this very spot with no
dallying along the way—but there had been the sensation, at least,
of covering quite a bit of ground in a vehicle during that brief
travel.

So where the hell was
I?—and how the hell had Powell gotten here so fast?—for that
matter, how the hell had Karen gotten here so quickly, on foot?—and
how the hell had Powell known exactly where to find her for this
rendezvous with death?

Besides which, I felt such an overpowering
sadness over the death of this man with whom I had felt so close in
such a short time.

And I had this equally overpowering sense of
sadness for Karen and the terrible goddamn mess her life seemed to
have fallen into.

I felt for life signs, even though I knew
there would be none. The whole front of his skull was crushed in
and blood was everywhere.

All the while Karen was
rocking him in her arms and sobbing over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm
so sorry ..."

It took me a while to pry her loose and
disentangle her from the still-warm corpse and get her onto her
feet, then I half carried, half led her back along the trail and
put her into the car.

Then I put myself in and cranked up the
mobile phone and called the cops. I did not know exactly where I
was, but I gave the location as best I could and told the
dispatcher I'd leave my headlights on.

Next I called Kalinsky, briefed him,
suggested he call his lawyer, and hung up on his spluttering.

Then I lit a cigarette and settled in for
the wait. Karen was into a blank stare. She had not uttered a word
except for the automatic speech noted above.

It took about ten minutes
for the police response. An LAPD black-and-white rolled up as I was
finishing a second cigarette. I had not thought of the Walther
again until that very moment, but decided then and there to slip it
onto the floor and kicked it under the seat as I got out to meet
the cops.

Two other cars came screeching in before the
cops hit the ground.

Kalinsky and troops.

It was going to be a long night.

It was, indeed, a very
long night.

Chapter Twelve: Time
Factor

The suspected "weapon" turns out to be a
rock weighing about ten pounds, roughly the size and shape of a
football. Theory has it that Karen could easily heft such a stone
in both hands, raise it overhead, and smash it against a human
skull with sufficient force to crush same.

Another theory has Karen alone and terrified
in the night, mistaking Powell for an attacker and thus putting his
lights out.

This without benefit of any input whatever
from Karen, herself. She is seated in my car, staring blankly at
nothing, while a guy introducing himself as Macllliney or
MacAllaney, the staff lawyer, holds her hand in silence. He is no
more than thirty years old and very ill at ease in the
situation.

There are other people all over the damned
place. There are also floodlights, helicopters, ambulances, many
police units, couple of television crews with minicams getting no
cooperation whatever from the officials.

Some of Kalinsky's people are quietly
discussing fine points of the law with some plainclothes cops.

Kalinsky himself is pacing nervously about,
obviously awaiting the arrival of something or someone else,
shooting me an occasional murderous glance and muttering under his
breath.

I am leaning against the front fender of the
Maserati, arms crossed, feeling almost like a casual spectator
until a uniformed cop approaches with a clipboard and asks me to
sign my statement. I scan it and sign it, hand the clipboard back,
the cop thanks me politely and walks away.

The night wears on.

The cops seem bent on an interview with
Karen over the continued objections of Kalinsky's people. There
seems to be a standoff of sorts.

Finally, Kalinsky's "someone" arrives in a
chauffered limousine. Kalinsky runs over and climbs inside; I get a
glimpse of a silver-haired man wearing a business suit.

It is midnight, now.

The cops have completed "securing the
scene." The corpse has been transported. There has been a huddle
around an open door of the limousine. Kalinsky emerges from the
huddle, goes to my car, takes Karen and the lawyer to the
limousine. I follow, because I am the curious type.

I hear a plainclothes cop
refer to the man in the limousine as "your honor." Another guy in
the huddle is apparently representing the DA's office. There is
some give and take, there, outside the limousine, before Karen is
allowed to enter. Fine points of law again. Or, maybe, fine points
of bending the law. I overhear phrases such as "medical affidavits"
and "conservator's certification" and I begin to get the
drift.