“That wasn’t so bad, now was it?” she asked.
“Says you,” I replied with a weak smile.
Jesenia was wearing a flowing light blue outfit with big pockets at the sides. Out of one of these she pulled her tarot cards. “I want you to do something for me. I want you to take just one card out of this deck.”
I did so, removing a card from approximately the middle. On it was a depiction of a man and woman, both nude. Presumably they were Adam and Eve, as there was a serpent entwined in the branches of a tree behind the woman. A tree behind the man looked to be on fire. An angel was over them in the sky, hands raised in a blessing.
“The Lovers,” Jesenia said. She nodded. “Tell Trey what you’ve told me. Your future is now melded with Trey’s, and he needs to know. See the angel above them? Wearing the purple robe? That’s Raphael. The color of his robes represents royalty, and it’s a symbol of how important communication is. Tell him. You need to include Trey in what you’re doing.”
Well, who could argue with a card? I smiled to myself, but I knew I’d take Jesenia’s advice to heart.
“Now,” she said, settling back, “I want you to look into the crystal. Tell me what you see.”
“I thought that was your job. I’m not the psychic, you know.” Nevertheless, I peered into the glass. All I saw were refractions of light and distortions of the room around us.
“Oh, I think you’ve got more than a touch of the vision in you. I believe Coleman has been trying to communicate with people for years, but he’s found an affinity with you. He wouldn’t have been able to connect with you as he has if you didn’t possess some psychic ability.”
It was odd. My eyes darted over to the lamp, as I was certain that now there was less light in the room. No, it hadn’t changed. But the crystal ball seemed darker to me, almost like it had been filled with smoke. My first thought was that it was some sort of trick, and I passed my hand under the table to feel if there was an apparatus that connected to the base of the crystal to cause this effect. Nothing.
Jesenia must have been able to see the mist as well. “Ah, that’s good. I knew you had it in you. Now peer into the fog. See what is hidden.”
There were dark shapes in the haze. A man. No, two. I narrowed my eyes, and the mists seemed to clear.
Coleman and Bryan. Naked. In each other’s arms. Kissing passionately. And, well, they were fucking.
But then Bryan was no longer there. Coleman was now dressed, wearing jeans torn at the knees, a light blue shirt, and a blue blazer. He was standing in a doorway, which I recognized as the entrance to the Raven’s Rest. He was motioning to someone. Me. He wanted me to follow him.
In my mind’s eye, I was no longer seated at Jesenia’s table. I was in the foyer of the Raven’s Rest, and Coleman was beckoning me to join him outdoors.
“Come,” he said.
I followed him. He led me down the path to the sidewalk. I tried to catch up with him, but no matter how fast I tried to move, Coleman was always about fifteen paces ahead of me. We went down several blocks until we came to the vacant lot by the record shop.
Suddenly it was night, and I swore I could feel the chill in my bones. The moon above us was partially obscured by clouds. Coleman stood at the edge of the lot, as if he dared not go any farther. He pointed to a spot back by some trees. It was a little wooded area, set away from any buildings or houses. It looked dark and desolate. A person could murder someone back there, and as long as they didn’t scream bloody murder, no one would be the wiser.
“There,” he said.
“You want me to go back there?” I asked.
He nodded.
I walked past him and began to make my way toward the back of the lot. The grass was high, and it must have nearly been morning, as dew had begun to cling to the stalks. The record shop was dark, as were the houses in the vicinity.
As I got close to the little copse of trees, I could hear sounds, like metal hitting gravel. Someone was digging with shovels or burying something. I could see shadows moving but no details.
Finally I could see the dark forms of two men, bent over a spot of earth, working with shovels. Their task must have been nearly completed, because one of the men moved back and withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket. Wiping his brow, he worriedly glanced around. I must have been invisible to him, for his eyes passed right over me.
“We should have taken him somewhere out of town. The woods somewhere. It was fucking dangerous, doing it here.”
The other man was patting down the earth with the back of his shovel. “Yeah? Did you want to get his blood all over the backseat of your car? The little bastard is good right here, right where he is.” He paused, peering out of the copse at the closest house, which was a fair distance away. “Believe me, no one saw us.”
The moon emerged from its cloud cover, and now I could make out more details. The man mopping sweat from his forehead was Darryl Hollis. He was younger, with no gray in his hair, and thinner than I knew him. I still couldn’t make out the features of the other man, who was in the shadows of the trees. I’d heard the voice before, though.
“
Michael, what are you seeing?
” Jesenia was speaking, but she sounded so far away, and muffled, as if I were hearing her from under water.
I couldn’t answer her, for fear of breaking the spell I was in. The vision I was seeing seemed so nebulous, so fragile, that the slightest disruption might cause it to shatter. I knew I was sitting in Jesenia Maupin’s living room, around a small wooden table, but I was also in a vacant lot in the wee hours of the morning, watching two men with shovels.
And I now recognized the second man. Gary Thornton, the man I’d seen eating with Darryl Hollis at McDonald’s. Gary Thornton, who would have been the sheriff of Banning back in the 1980s.
“I know,” I muttered. The “me” in the vision, the one standing watching the two men, watched as a fog enveloped the scene. Suddenly I was back, watching a cloudy crystal ball, Jesenia leaning across the table in anticipation.
“You know what?” she asked.
“I know why Coleman wanted me to walk to Trey’s last night. I know what he wanted to show me.” I sighed and looked up into Jesenia’s worried eyes. “And I know where Bryan Finn is buried.”
WE WERE
sitting on the bed in the Ulalume Suite. My legs were splayed out, one on either side of Trey. His were folded, almost in the lotus position. He’d taken off his shoes and was plucking at some lint on his black socks.
“Say something.” I couldn’t bear the suspense. I’d just revealed everything to him, and while I was sure Trey wasn’t going to respond in the way Kevin would have—calling me stupid and yelling and generally playing the martyr at having to put up with me—I still wasn’t sure how he’d react.
Trey plucked a tiny piece of fluff off his sock and released it over the side of the bed. It slowly fell to the floor. “Well,” he said slowly, not meeting my eye, “first off, thanks for finally telling me. I wondered why you were acting so strange the other day.” He scrunched his mouth up and ran a hand through his thick mop of hair. He leaned back a little. “I can understand why you didn’t, though.”
“It was a dumb thing to do,” I said.
Trey shrugged. “Maybe. It turned out to be a good thing, though, if it was Coleman that shoved you out of the way of the car.” He looked around the room. “Thanks, dude,” he said to the air.
“I don’t think he’s here right now,” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. He knows I’m thankful.” Trey smiled sadly. “I guess if you were having this conversation with old Uglyface Kevin, he’d be throwing a fit right now, yelling and screaming and calling you names.”
“Definitely.”
A smile crept across Trey’s face. “Good thing I’m not Kevin, isn’t it.”
“Thank goodness.” My heart felt suddenly light as a feather.
“I’d have done the same thing, if it makes you feel any better.”
Hell, yeah, it did. “Would you?”
“Absolutely. Coleman’s not shown any animosity toward you. I’m the one he scratched, and that was because he was confused, thinking I was making a move on his man. Note that since he was informed that you aren’t, despite appearances, his Bryan, he’s been a perfect gentleman when I’ve been here. Well, okay, he made a bit of a mess at the séance, but he didn’t harm anyone. Plus, from the sound of it, you weren’t absolutely sure of what he was suggesting.”
“That’s true. But when it became obvious, I didn’t put up a fight.”
“Might have been too late by then. I think you’re beating yourself up over something you didn’t really have control over.”
Sighing, I leaned forward until my forehead was resting against his. “Thank you,” I whispered.
My eyes were closed, but I sensed his smile. “Hey, you’re my guy. I gotta stick up for you.”
“In my experience, those things don’t always go together.”
“They do now,” Trey said, kissing me just as I moved my head back and was opening my eyes. “Get used to it.”
We sat in silence for nearly a minute, gathering our thoughts and holding hands. I looked around the room. “My last night here.”
“Yep.” Trey didn’t sound nearly as wistful about it as I did.
“This is going to sound nuts, but I’m a little sad about leaving without finishing with Coleman.”
“You did all you could,” Trey told me.
My cell phone rang. It was Erin Hughes. “I’m downstairs” was all she said.
I hung up and nodded at Trey. “You’re coming with me for moral support. Right?”
“Absolutely.”
We put on our shoes, grabbed our jackets, and went downstairs, where the deputy was chatting with Betty Schultz at the front desk. She paused when we approached, realizing I probably didn’t want Lonnie’s mother included in our conversation. She excused herself and ushered me and Trey over to an unoccupied corner of the room.
“You were pretty vague over the phone,” she said in low tones. “But I gather you’ve got some information for me, but you can’t really say how you got said information.”
“Well, I can say,” I told her. “You just wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me.”
“I know where Bryan Finn is buried. At least, I think I do.”
She arched an eyebrow. “And how did you come by this information?”
My face was my apology. “I was looking in a crystal ball.”
Trey put his arm around me. “I know it sounds—”
“Ridiculous?” Hughes shook her head. “Oh, guys, I’ve heard worse in my time, believe me. May I ask where he’s supposed to be buried?”
“You know that vacant lot down the road? The one toward downtown? There’s a patch at the back where there are some trees. He’s back there.” I was thankful she was still listening to us and not dismissing us outright.
“And you saw this through a crystal ball.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer. “Let me guess. Jesenia Maupin was somehow involved.”
“She was,” I admitted.
Deputy Hughes bit her lip. “It’s pretty flimsy, guys.”
“We know. That’s why we called you specifically. At least you know us. You know we’re not total crackpots.”
“Speak for yourself,” Trey muttered to me.
Hughes thought some more, rubbing the back of her neck. Finally she emitted a groan and said, “I appreciate the faith you’re giving me, guys, but you have to understand my position here. I can’t go to Sheriff Boswell and tell him I’ve had a great tip and that I know now where a decades-old body is buried because a guy saw it in a crystal ball.”
“You don’t have to,” Trey said. “Michael and I can dig—”
The deputy shook her head. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea either. I’m pretty sure that lot is city property, but I’m not completely sure. If someone owns it, you’d be trespassing at the very least.”
“Well, we can’t just leave him there!” I protested.
Hughes’s head shaking became more emphatic. “I can’t have you digging holes all over a vacant lot—”
“I know the exact spot!”
She gave me a sympathetic look. “Look, I can tell you’re pretty worked up over this. But try to see it from my point of view. Officially, Bryan Finn isn’t a murder victim. Most folks around here believe he ran off about the same time as Coleman Hollis back in the 1980s and that they’re alive and happy right now. Darryl says he’s even heard from Coleman over the years, that he’s married and had kids.”
“Well, yeah, he would say that. He’s the one that killed him.” Trey snorted in derision.
Pursing her lips, Hughes seemed deep in thought. “I suppose there’s no harm in having the two of you show me the spot.”
While it was a concession on her part, it fell short of what I’d hoped for. “It’s been decades. It’s not like you’re going to see anything on the surface after all this time. We have to dig—”
She stopped me, holding up a hand. “Let’s just check out the spot and go from there. If I get the right vibe, who knows what I might do? I might feel like doing a little digging. I might not. But I’ll check out the area in question.”
I managed a smile. “I guess it’s better than nothing.”
Hughes nodded. “Then you two had better come along and show me the spot. We’d best get a move on, though, while there’s still some daylight.”
SEEING THE
spot in the present, not in a psychic vision, gave me an odd feeling. I knew in my heart that Bryan Finn was buried in the ground under us, but after all the years there was no indication. It was, however, fairly isolated. A huge wooden fence, which, now that I saw it, had also been there in the vision (just a dark shadow there), cut off any view from the north. The trees shielded the area from the prying eyes of the neighbors next to the lot, and a decrepit warehouse was to the east. A person walking along the street might, just might, be able to get a view of someone standing among the trees, but it was unlikely.
Even Hughes had to admit it would make a good makeshift burial site.
“At night,” she said, kicking at the ground with the toe of her boot, “you could probably get away with it. As long as you didn’t make too much noise.” She looked at me. “You need to tell me everything you saw in that crystal ball. Like I said, I can’t promise to act on it, but I want to know.”