The other doctor was silent and Sophia had to focus to keep the thread of their conversation. Strange sights tried to pull her away, a giant fat snail sitting in the corner of her vision beckoned to her.
“Yes, but also dangerous… How could she know the names? It’s one thing to observe a telepathic patient or a seer, but a medium who receives the stories and names of the dead? I must admit, I hardly believed you when you wrote the group. I thought she must be pulling your chain and yet…”
“It’s real,” Kaiser whispered. His hands wandered to Sophia’s wrist, he stroked his thumb back and forth along her pulse as if ensuring himself that his prize pig was still alive. “The implications,” Kaiser continued, “can you imagine the power such a person could have in the world?”
“Except she’s not in the world because she’s insane. Who would ever believe her?”
“That’s why it is so important that she have our guidance. I’m less interested in offering her gift than in obtaining the information contained there-in. If we proved…”
Kaiser had not trailed off, but Sophia had slipped down a long shimmering hallway of blue light. It seemed to spin circles around her and she wanted to press her hands into the walls, but they had no substance. She walked and walked, her legs never tiring, her body as buoyant as the sparkling lights that danced in her vision. The tunnel ended into a bright white nothing, but there suspended in the center was a small table with two chairs. In one chair sat Jack.
Sophia wanted to collapse, but of their own will her legs carried her forward. He smiled up at her and patted the other chair. She sat, trying to reach for him, but never grasping more than air. He was so close and yet she could not touch him.
Chapter 20
September 1965
Jude
Jude pulled the car down a dusty driveway that ended at a tall farmhouse. It was old, but a fresh coat of white paint and a porch arranged with pots of flowers, gave the home an air of cared-for that the rest of the desolate road lacked. An old swing-set stood to one side, and Jude saw a baby doll with only a single arm swaying in the baby swing that hung from the rusted frame. It gave her the creeps, and she wished she’d taken Clayton up on his offer to join her.
Grabbing a notebook and slinging her camera around her neck, she walked to the front door. She peeked through a screen into a long, dark hallway listening for voices, but heard only the hollow tick of a grandfather clock. She knocked hard, and the screen jostled in its frame.
The unseasonably humid September day made the experience rather disjointed and dreamy. If she stood for much longer, she’d grow dizzy and swoon, a behavior she’d often observed in Hattie over the years, but rarely experienced herself.
“Is anyone home?” she called into the darkness, knocking a second time.
More silence.
She turned to leave, and saw a man moving out of a thicket of corn rows, a young girl clung to his hand bouncing up and down excitedly.
“A visitor, Mr. Dale! Look, look!” the little girl practically screamed as she pointed at Jude and tried to break from the man’s grip.
He didn’t speed up at the sight of her, and Jude reached into her jeans pocket touching the little switchblade she’d tucked there. He was harmless surely, but she had learned to be cautious of strange men, especially when meeting them at isolated country houses.
“Can I help ya?” he asked. His eyes darting to the camera around her neck and then to her little car parked in the driveway. He frowned as if making an assessment.
“I hope so,” she said offering a smile and her hand as she walked down the stairs to greet him. “My name’s Jude and I work for the Wexford County Gazette. We’ve been investigating cold cases. I came across a newspaper article about Rosemary Bell. I wondered if you knew her?”
The moment he heard Rosemary’s name his face darkened.
“Aunt Rosemary died!” the little girl squawked. Her mousy brown hair was pulled into a ponytail and her clothes were splattered with mud.
“Sarah,” the man told her. “Go play on your swing set.”
He gave her a little push, and she ran off to the swings snatching the one-armed doll and tossing her high in the air.
“She’s sweet,” Jude lied. Not that Sarah wasn’t sweet. Jude didn’t have a soft spot for children, especially the loud, mud-smeared kind like Sarah.
“She’s a handful and belongs to her mama, not me. Name’s Dale,” the man told her, offering her a rough handshake.
He gestured towards the aged wicker furniture that faced out at the dusty driveway. “Rosemary was my sister,” he said, settling into a chair.
He wore jeans and a polo t-shirt that stuck to his chest and back in little pockets of sweat. He was mostly bald, and gray in the other areas. Jude pegged him at fifty but aged beyond his years. He rested his hands on a belly that had once likely been flat and now revealed a love of cheap beer and ball games.
“Rosemary was murdered?” Jude asked. She wasn’t a reporter and didn’t know how to go about easing into her questions.
He nodded and wiped a hand along his sweaty brow. Jude noticed he wore a brown leather glove on his left hand despite the warm day.
“Can I get you something? I need a drink if we’re going to talk about this.”
“Umm sure, I’ll have what you’re having,” she offered, figuring the more accommodating she was the more open he’d be.
He stood and walked into the house returning a few minutes later with three cans of beer. He slammed the first in two huge gulps not bothering to sit back down. When he opened the second, he returned to his seat. Jude took a sip of her own and tried to contain her grimace. She had stopped drinking beer after her teenage years, and had never much cared for the taste.
“Nobody’s asked about Rosemary in ten years, I’d say,” he told Jude, flicking the tab on his beer can. He gazed out at the little girl who’d returned her doll to the swing and was pushing her high into the blue sky. “We grew up here, me, Rosemary and my little brother, Kurt. My mom and dad too. Dad’s been dead going on twenty years and my mom moved into a home last February. Real nice place, too. Not one of those kind ya hear about on TV where people are layin’ in their piss all day.”
Jude nodded.
“Both my parents are dead,” she offered. Clayton’s voice popped into her head: “Don’t share any personal information. If you share nothing, you can’t get caught in a lie.” She bit her lip and didn’t say more.
Dale nodded, but Jude doubted he heard her. He seemed to be lost in his memories.
“I was seventeen when Rosemary died. They found her in Earl’s cabin out in the woods, about five miles yonder.” He pointed indistinctly towards the cornfield that edged their property. “Murdered, stabbed a dozen times.” His tone held a hardness that Jude found disconcerting. She pretended to take another sip of beer, but suddenly didn’t want to be even vaguely incapacitated.
Jude glanced toward the empty country road and wished a car would go by.
“Did they ever find her killer?”
Dale nodded and took another long drink, crushing the can in his large hand and letting it fall to the porch. The clatter made Jude jump despite watching its passage.
“Girl by the name of Sophia Gray. A strange one who lived on the property that bordered those woods. Only thirteen years old.”
“A thirteen-year-old stabbed your sister?” Jude asked, trying to keep her voice neutral, curious, but not invested. “That seems odd, right? I mean most murders are committed by men…”