Missing: The Body of Evidence (24 page)

The door to the dilapidated house
creaked open just enough to reveal the face of a middle-aged woman.

‘Hi, I was given this address by the
janitor from the psychic church. Is it possible to see Miss Chambers?’

‘Sure, come in.’

The hallway, lit only by the glass panels
at each side of the entrance, smelled clean and fresh. It was like stepping
into a different era with the decor. The woman lifted the glass on a copper oil
lamp that stood on a nineteen-thirties-coat stand and lit the wick. Over a
floral pinafore, the pink woollen cardigan she wore had holes from years of
use.

‘Electric gone out?’

‘We don’t have any use for it here. What’s
your name?’

‘Nancy... Nancy Roberts.’

‘Follow me.’

They walked along the corridor. The woman
wobbled in front of her on rickets-ridden-bowed legs. Dancing shadows created
an eerie atmosphere as the light flickered and the lamp swayed at her side. At
the end of the hallway, the woman opened the door. Directly ahead, the lamp
cast light into a room. The curtains were closed and the woman beckoned her to
follow. A single candle on a low table, gave off the fragrance of jasmine. In
one corner of the room was an unoccupied single bed. In the centre of the room,
there stood two winged chairs, a low table and a footstool.

‘Someone to see you, Dora... Nancy Roberts.’

A voice croaked back from the direction of
the back of one of the winged chairs.

‘Please, sit down.’

The woman placed the lamp on the low table
at one side of the chairs and signalled for her to sit. Nancy perched with her
behind on the edge of the chair. At the first sight of Dora, she had to hold
back a gasp. The frail woman looked like a rag doll, with a skeletal frame. Her
muscle tissue had wasted with age, leaving her veins with the appearance of
being on the outside of her translucent skin. Liver spots peppered her face,
arms and legs. Her white hair, well groomed, cascaded to her waist. The woman’s
eyes shocked Nancy. Devoid of pupils, her eyes were a murky-white, with red
veins, like streaks of lightning frozen in a cloudy sky on a still frame of a
photo.

‘Come, let me see you.’

The irony was not lost on Nancy. Dora
raised her bony trembling fingers and reached out. Nancy manoeuvred onto the
footstool in front of her. Half expecting her skin to crawl, Dora’s touch was
surprisingly warm.

‘Beautiful. Your mom will be proud. Is that
why you’re here?’

‘I don’t know why I’m here.’ She was not
lying, but she did not want to give her any clues that her mom had passed away,
or the curiosity that was biting at her brain, to see just what the woman could
come up with by way of an insight as to what Mary had meant. ‘Well, I guess…
really I’m here because a woman psychic I met said I have a gift and I should
seek help.’

‘Who was the psychic?’

‘Mary Goodyear.’

‘Mary?’ Dora growled the name as if in
disgust. Silence ensued.

‘You have a gift, dear, but it is nothing a
psychic can help with, only to tell you that you’re an alternative. I’m
surprised Mary didn’t try to recruit you.’

‘What do you mean,
alternative
, and
why on earth would she want to recruit me?’

‘Just think yourself lucky she didn’t find
you as a child. You’re probably too old for her.’

Paedophile ring came to mind, and sent her
brain into detective mode.

‘Please explain in full?’

‘First tell me about your dreams that
trouble you?’

Nancy moved back to the chair and wondered
how she could know about her dreams, but then thought maybe it was the
psychic’s ruse and the woman was digging for information. Her avoidance of the
question about Mary was annoying.

‘Okay, but what do you mean when you say
alternative
?’

‘The answer is in your dreams, dear.
Alternatives with magnetic auras as strong as yours can have different gifts.
Your dreams will have the answers to your questions.’

Magnetic aura?
Nancy gave up the idea of fencing the questions and relayed her
experiences during her dreams.

‘You’re a traveller, but you are also in
danger.’

‘A traveller?’

‘Astral travel, dear. It’s a rare gift. Did
you ever have imaginary friends as a child?’

‘Well, yes, according to my dad, but what’s
that got to do with it?’

‘Some people are born with the gift, and
others seek out the similarly gifted for company. Most grow out of it, but in
some, it can develop for their spirit to travel at will, which is why we call
them alternatives. Psychics only deal with spirits in the hereafter. It sounds
as though other alternatives are seeking you out, but for evil purposes, not
for companionship.’

Nancy pressed her back into the upright of
the chair. Lost for words at first, her mind raced over the probability, not
wanting to believe the truth of what she was hearing.

‘So where does Mary fit into the equation.’

‘She holds counselling seminars for
children with imaginary friends that seek help from various spiritualist
churches in the state. Some sort of psychic research program she’s involved
with.’

Dora’s head began to sway from side to
side, then the whole upper half of her body, as if entering a trance. A hiss
escaped her lips and then she started to groan.

‘Your mom’s here, dear. She said to tell
you she’s had a word with your dad. Does that make sense?’

It made perfect sense. Pins and needles ran
through Nancy’s body and she shuddered.

‘Ask her if she knows what I should do?’

She couldn’t quite believe she was
accepting the possibility of her mom’s spirit presence.

‘She can hear you, and she says to follow
your instincts.’

Dora’s head slumped forward. Nancy gazed at
her in stunned silence. Gradually, she raised her head.

‘Sorry, dear, she’s gone. I need to rest
now. Please, call for Jayne to see you out.’

Nancy thanked her and made her way outside
the room. The visit posed more questions than she had answers. Jayne met her in
the hallway.

‘How much do I pay for the session?’

‘Nothing, unless you want to leave a
voluntary donation?’

Taking some bills from her purse, Nancy
dropped them on the coat stand and hurried to her car. There were no tears;
just a feeling of warmth that maybe there was a life after death, and her mom
maybe watching over her. In the confines of her car, Nancy sat pondering over
the revelation, finding it hard to take in and looking for logical reasons to
dismiss the idea that her dreams were her spirit going on some kind of journey.
She sat back and closed her eyes. The lyrics for the Westlife song played over
in her mind, together with images from the You Tube video.

Nancy opened her eyes and gripped the
steering wheel.
Astral travel... Astral Chemicals!

Nancy turned off at West Washington
Boulevard, and drove through the gates of Angelus Rosedale Cemetery for her
meeting with Bill. She followed the winding cracked asphalt road to her
pre-determined clandestine meeting. With sixty-five acres of open ground save
for the tombstones, the occasional palm tree and a few trees, there was not
much hope of hiding their presence. On the positive side, she reckoned, if
anyone was going to set up surveillance, they would be easy to spot.

He had chosen his spot well. A clump of
trees and bushes afforded some cover. Nancy pulled over and stopped her car,
leaving the engine idling. With five minutes to spare, she climbed out of her
car and onto the sun burned grass. Nancy stretched her legs and looking out
into the distance, she did a three-sixty to reconnoitre the area. She could not
be sure if it was wise, meeting Bill. Nancy felt for her gun, tucked into her
jeans waistband. The feel of the cold steel gave her a surge of confidence.

She felt stupid at her dark thoughts, that
someone who had been a friend for the last fifteen years could be a threat.
But, aware that her dad had bad thoughts about Bill, and his advice to trust no
one, she thought it best to err on the side of caution.

A car the same colour as Bill’s approached.
She watched it follow the winding road, until she could determine it was the
same model as the one driven by Bill. The hairs on her neck bristled and she
wiped the sweat from her palms down the side of her jeans. Her muscles tensed,
until, with some relief, she caught sight of Bill’s face through the windscreen
and her stance loosened. He stopped his car behind hers and opened the
passenger door.

‘Hi, Nance, get in.’

She gripped the top of his car-door frame
and hesitated.

‘Best we talk outside. It’ll be better to
keep an eye out.’

His age showed as he struggled to haul his
frame out of the driver’s seat to join her.

‘What’s the secrecy all about?’

‘Well, we’re not supposed to talk during
your suspension for one. Last thing I want is for them to stop my pension.’

‘Yeah, I suppose. Have you talked to Kyle?’

‘No, but stop worrying about him. It’ll all
be sorted out once you’re out of this mess. You need to concentrate on your own
skin. Who do you think is setting you up?’

She thought that she could hardly tell him,
he could be in the frame, and wondered how he knew to tell her not to talk on
the telephone about their meeting. Nancy decided against telling him she knew
about the surveillance team monitoring her apartment. If he was somehow part of
the set up and on a fishing expedition, she was not about to let him reel her
in. Her fear was that he might be carrying a wire to record the conversation.

‘Not got a clue. But Logan says they’ve
found Dean, the guy who deposited the money in my account and they’re picking
him up today.’

‘You’ve not heard?’

‘Heard what?’

‘They found him with his throat cut.’

‘What... Oh shit?’

Nancy stood akimbo and froze, slack jawed,
her brow furrowed in anguish.

‘It’s not all bad news; they’ve arrested
the gang leader.’

‘Jesus, what good’s that to me? Have you
any idea who may be behind all this?’

‘Well, it’s a long shot, but I have my own
conspiracy theory. Let me run something involving Astral by you.’

Her back stiffened at mention of the name.

‘What about Astral?’

‘Look, when you mentioned Astral Chemicals
before the Piru Street operation, I wasn’t honest with you. I have heard of
them, but it was a long time ago.’

He shuffled his feet and looked down at the
ground.

‘It goes back to just after I made
detective and my partner Jim was found hanged under a bridge. God rest his
soul.’

‘But what’s that got to do with Astral?’

‘According to the death certificate...
nothing.’

He gripped his nose and flushed it out on
the asphalt.

‘It’s a long story, but it all goes back to
the Kennedy assassinations.’

‘Awe, come on, Bill, you’re not gonna fill
me with a load of crap about another Kennedy conspiracy theory.’

‘No, I’m just going to tell you what I
know. You make up your own mind.’ He closed the passenger door on his car,
leaned with his back against the body and continued. ‘Jim picked up on a lead,
but no one in authority wanted to know, so he followed it up in his spare time
until he became obsessed. Long and short is, he found out about a government
program set up during the cold war. America discovered the Russians were
working on mind control and set up their own project, codenamed, Astral. The
Kennedy administration wanted to cut funding, saying they didn’t believe in all
the psychic mumbo jumbo. The goons set up a corporation to market some of the
drugs they concocted to aid the program and kept it going. The program was
buried so deep out of sight of the administration, I don’t think even the top
people in the CIA knew all they got up to. That’s as much as he told me. He
said if anything should happen to him, he kept a file inside his mattress, but
after his death, I searched for it and it wasn’t there, just the tear in his
mattress.’

‘So what are you saying, Oswald and the guy
who killed Bobby Kennedy were part of this program and had their minds
brainwashed.’

‘I’m not saying anything. All I am saying
is, if you search the internet, you’ll find the mind control program is alive
and kicking, but they don’t give it a name. Hell, they even developed a
contraption for the Iraq war, it sent out messages that were picked up in the
subconscious of Iraqi troops telling them to surrender.’

‘But why the name Astral?’

‘I guess it’s because they recruited people
with psychic abilities. I watched a television documentary in black an’ white,
which claimed some of the guinea pigs could project their mind to travel to
secret installations and draw pictures from what they saw on the inside.’

‘Thinking about it, I’ve seen that
documentary.’

Nancy’s head began to throb at a cascade of
jumbled thoughts and trying to relate them to her situation. Her head bowed and
she held her face in her hands.

‘Mind blowing, isn’t it?’

A recollection came to the fore, from the
words of CIA agent Blondie, when she had asked if they were in involved in Blue
Book stuff and he had replied. ‘It’s called
mind over matter
, as in we
don’t mind, because you don’t matter.’ Nancy removed her hands from her face
and raised her head at the irony of Blondie’s words.

‘Jesus. So that’s why you told me to forget
the case with the professor?’

‘In a nutshell... yeah, and because you
didn’t listen, I reckon it’s them that set you up with the punk that deposited
the money, and as a backup in case their attempt to kill you and Kyle at the
cabin failed.’

‘But why Kyle?’

‘Either collateral damage, or because he
had voiced his concerns that maybe the janitor’s death was connected with the
professor and that he hadn’t committed suicide.’

‘Damn, Bill, how do I get out of this mess?’

‘Stop digging, accept whatever happens with
internal affairs, lay low, get married, have kids and live a long life.’

Tears welled in her eyes at the frustration
she felt at his last words.

He reached out and took her in his arms.
When they broke, she detected tears in his eyes.

‘Damned hay fever.’

He shrugged his shoulders and turned to
walk to the driver’s side of his car. ‘Listen, I have to go. Be careful and
heed my words, stay low. We’ve got another five days before internal affairs
interviews me.’

‘Wait... where do you and Logan know Dad
from?’

He pulled open the car door, and looked
annoyed at the question. Ignoring her request, he climbed onto the driver’s
seat, opened his glove compartment and handed her a miniature Dictaphone
through the open passenger window.

‘Maybe another time. Keep this with you
always. You never know when you may need to record a conversation.’

Nancy stood watching him drive away,
wondering why neither Bill, nor Dad wanted to talk about what they knew of each
other.