Remote 2

The girl hangs over the right shoulder of a walking man. Her long hair blows gently in the wind. She is naked and her arms are limp and swaying slightly as the man trudges on. It’s nearly night, and his way is broken as he moves around trees and fallen limbs, stopping once to reset the body he carries, then moving on. He stops once more to pull a small flashlight from his pocket, turn it on, and continue his walk, his search, while the limp girl moves in a kind of loose dance to his steps. He nears an old and unlit building and stops.

In the afternoon of the following day, several towns away in Indian Lake, Illinois, Leonard Defore is building a fence. Just for the look of it, he will say, if anyone asks him, but no one is likely to ask. The real reason for the fence is that Leonard needs the work, the hard and heavy labor. He enjoys this and is glad for the muscles that swell his arms and shoulders, but his primary motive concerns sleep. As always, he enjoys the work and is glad for the muscles that swell his arms and shoulders, but his primary motive concerns sleep. If he has a taxing physical project, he will sleep well and, most importantly, he will not dream. This way of staying dreamless has caused the house to be newly painted, a shed built, more than enough firewood stacked and even the wheel barrow to once again shine a bright red.

He has, over the years, seen his daughter grow and leave the home, and then his wife also in time, and now at 54 he’s been alone for eight years, though his daughter visits. He is an accountant who works out of his home for the people and businesses in the town, and he is also a known "remote viewer." Now and then, sometimes after years of not dreaming, he’ll have another episode, where he sees, in his dream, something that is happening, actually happening, somewhere else in the world, sometimes as close as the town where he lives. Twice, he has used such a viewing to help the police solve a local crime, and this has set him apart and caused a loner to be even more alone than he wishes.

His phone is ringing now. It is likely a client calling. But as he reaches for it, he feels a small tick of worry that it might be someone who wants to know about his “gift,” his remote viewing, a reporter, someone writing a book, or someone who has lost something and wants him to dream where it is. He sees the name of Betha Kane on his phone. She is a police detective in the larger town of Waukegan, and, yes, he helped her solve a case here in Indian lake, nearly six months ago. He is hoping that she has thought long about it and now wants to continue the two-date relationship they had before she stepped back, but he’s afraid that this is police business again, and she will try to pull him into it, just as he is trying to end it, end the viewing, end being that odd man in town who gets those looks. Will he ever erase those looks? Still, he finds he wants to hear her voice, come what may.

“Hey, Betha.”

“Leonard, hi. Have you heard about what’s going on here, the murders, the ‘Hide and Seek Murders’ they call them?”

“I’m fine, Betha. Thanks for asking.”

“Okay, I’m pushing this, Leonard, I know. But it needs pushing. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

Well, Waukegan is a long way off. Must be almost fifteen miles from the lake towns.”

“So, you’re still mad at me. That doesn’t matter now.”

“I’m not mad. I was never mad. Just disappointed.”

Well, get over it. Or don’t. It doesn’t matter now. What matters is another girl is missing and we found her clothes, just like the last three. He puts the clothes out where they’ll be found, like some kind of goddamn trophy. But he hides the bodies, and by the time we find them they’re decomposed, and we need a fresh body to stop this son of a bitch. We have a suspect this time. Prime. I’m betting on this guy.”

“I haven’t dreamed in a long time. Well, not that kind of dream.  I dreamed of you a few times.”

 “Four girls in three years. Four families gutted, and you’re talking about us?! Come here. I’ll take you to the places where we found the other bodies. I’ll show you photos of the girls, of this girl. Liya Pope. She’s 17. I’ll pay your expenses, get you a room somewhere. Give it some days and see what happens.”

“Your department wants me to come, to get involved in this?”

“No. It’s just me. Nobody’ll know what you’re doing. No reporters. No cops.  Just us.”

“I don’t see how you can hide me, Betha. From your team?”

“I’m . . . not on the team. I’m officially off the case. It’ll be just us . . ."

“Off the case? What is this?”

“The suspect is a hothead. I got in his face and he put a hand on me, so I punched him in the throat. My captain says I overreacted and so I’m off the case. I’m doing this on my own because we have a chance, Leonard. I handled the last two of these killings and I want this to be over. Forever. Will you please come here?!”

He pauses, but he knew from the beginning he would try to help her. “Will you tell me, please . . that your expectations are very low on this, Betha? Do you know the odds?”

“I know the girls are dying. That’s what I know.”

He arrives in Waukegan the next evening. She meets him at the motel where she has booked him a room. It’s not quite seedy. She apologizes, but he’s not really listening, just studying her brown skin aglow under the cheap ceiling fixture. He’s remembering her hard-won laughter that loosened him like a drink, her smart, sarcastic smile when she gave it, remembering the one deep kiss that she had interrupted as she stood back from him, shaking her head, truly sorry, he saw, but firmly shaking her head. How did she say it? “I’m all job, Leonard, and I’m aiming for the Chicago force in a year and . . . ”

He had asked if there was someone else, and had hated watching her nod. “Cop like me. It’s a secret thing. It’s just . . . something we do and walk away from, and I know you want more than that, and I can’t.”

He had said, “Try me,” and she had stared a while, and then her damn head was shaking as she told him, “You’d want more, and maybe I would, too, but I can’t do it now. Can’t step off this road. Sorry.”

Remembering all this, he asks her now, “Tell me – is it the dead girls, just the girls, or do you want this killer for your plan, for Chicago?”

Her stare goes even deeper, and she takes her time and says it softly. “It’s the girls.”

He nods, tossing his suitcase on the bed. “When do we start this?”

“There’s a diner across the road,” she tells him. “It’s not very good, but it’s quick. I’ll pick you up there tomorrow morning at 8:30. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you these photos, all the girls including the one gone missing now and details about the cases. Look at them here. Not at the diner. You’re not supposed to have access.”

He nods. Now the goodbye. Will she take a step closer? No. She moves to the door, opens it, turns to him, sighs. “You ready for this?”

“For this longshot,” he says. “Yeah.” He nods, she nods, and it’s over, and he’s alone. 

In the morning he’s in the diner, finishing his breakfast as he watches one of the servers, a young man who isn’t bringing anyone’s meal, but asking about coffee, juice, a refill . . .  Leonard is caught by this man’s dance-like movements, as he dips and turns and uses his hands to underscore what he’s saying, holding one hand as if it is a cup as he asks his question, then dipping, turning, his hand now holding a glass that isn’t there. “Juice, señor?”

Leonard sits with the last bite of pancake on his fork, held by this man – who is then blocked by Betha’s body as she appears at his table, staring. He looks at her, at his watch, says, “You’re ten minutes early. Want some coffee?”

She ignores the question and sits lightly on the opposite chair. “Did you look through everything?”

“I don’t look at decomposed bodies. I draw the line there. What the hell is that supposed to give me? I looked at the photos of the girls as they were. You trying to shock me?

“Yes. Let’s get out there.”

He finishes his coffee, pays. She says, “Keep the receipt. I’ll catch all this at the end.”

In half an hour they’re at a dirt road with deep ditches on either side, and Betha is pointing into a ditch, saying “Mary Beth Oldham. He didn’t exactly bury her. He didn’t dig, just put her in the ditch and covered her with leaves and branches, and all that piled up over time and then was washed away in our biggest storm, and she was uncovered. This photo . . . here.”

He doesn’t look at the photo she holds. Instead he checks one that Betha has given him, the girl when she was alive. Sixteen. A deep and true smile. He steps into the ditch, staring, asking, “So she was face up?”

“Yes, why?” But he only stares into the ditch and again at the photo, and Betha says, “We found her bike right away. We think he was following her in his vehicle and then bumped her to knock her down, then put her in the vehicle and came down this old road, found a secluded spot and raped and strangled . . . Well, you read all this, right?”

He nods, still looking into the ditch. “You think he might have killed her here?”          

“Possible. She’d been missing for over eight months.” He nods again, then looks up, toward what she might have seen, the last of what she would ever see. “What do you think?” Betha asks him.

He brings his look to her and says, “We can go to the next one.”

Isabelle Woo had been hidden under a fallen tree, the tree propped slightly off the ground by other deadfall. She had been 15. Willowy. The photo he holds shows her laughing. Leonard kneels at the sight, stares at everything, imagines everything. When he rises and brushes himself off, Betha says, “Feeling anything?”

“Don’t keep asking,” he says. “Okay?” She nods and he goes on. “This is all just . . . Just in case I dream. Thousand to one, all right?” They walk to where she has parked. “Where now?” he asks.

“I have things to do. I’ll pick you up at the motel at ten tonight. Take another look at the girl, and the suspect’s photos, Dan Melios, and his sheet. I’ll bring you to where he works, a restaurant bar. Kinda seedy. He’s the bartender. You can study him. He’s been incarcerated twice."

“I have all this, Betha. I’ll take a look.” But she goes on.

“He was seen with Liya at the bar, where she used a fake ID, and he busted her, but they were smiling, people said. They talked a while. Then, when he closed up around midnight she was out there, waiting. One of the workers saw them, and the suspect confirms that, says she walked him to his apartment, said goodbye and he never saw her again. Just a kid, he said, and he said she was funny. Funny. Melios came to town four years ago. Just before the first girl went missing. I know you read this but read it again. It can’t hurt. And read about his convictions, assault and battery, one of them . . . ”

“One of them a woman,” he says. “I know, Betha. I read every word and I’ll go through it all again. Drop me here, and I’ll walk the rest.”

She pulls over, staring at him. “So I’m pushing you. I know . . . ”

He’s already opening the car door, saying: “I’ll see you at ten. And don’t come early,” and he walks on and she watches him. 

Later, in the car, on the way to the restaurant-bar she begins schooling him again. “This girl is exactly, exactly the right fit for the ones he’s killed, the age, the size. He takes a big chance here, ‘cause he knows he’s been seen with her, so . . . I’m thinking maybe it was not planned this time. She was a target of opportunity. We’re here.” She parks across the street from a neon sign: “STALLS.” “Ben Stalls is the owner. Our guy Dan works the bar until they close at midnight. He acts as bouncer too when he has to. He’s a boxer. He was. Welter weight. Eight legit fights until he was arrested for assault and battery, and that killed that.”

“Okay. Got it.”

“Study that asshole, go deep . . . so then maybe . . . ”

“Look, Betha, you’re in my territory now. My goddamn dreams. I’ll watch him. I’ll leave, and we’ll see what happens. You can back off. You can wait.” 

“Yes, sir,” she says – and they hold on each other’s eyes for two seconds and he’s out of there.

Dan Melios seems to be the perfect bartender. He’s quick, knows his drinks, cracks a handsome smile now and then, but the smiles are tempered.  Something on his mind. He has a boxer’s scar that splits one eyebrow, looks like he works out, sends his glance all around, looking for trouble? It’s one of those places with three screens, no volume, all sports, and Leonard, after ordering his whisky tonic, watches a game of cricket, Afghanistan versus . . . He can’t catch it. Dan brings him a nut dish. Leonard nods a thanks to the possible killer of four young girls and sips his drink, eats some almonds.

In the mirror he watches some of the meager patrons. A man two stools down reacts to one of the screens and turns to Leonard, saying “You catch that?! Jesus!”

“Missed it,” Leonard says and looks at his drink with his eyes glancing at Dan now and then. Looking for what? Just looking, just pinning the man into his brain. He tires of this and looks at himself in the mirror and tires of that, too. He wishes the man from the diner was here, the fluid young man dodging and turning and doing a kind of mime dance among the customers, and then he has an odd thought that surprises him. He thinks, what if he were that man? Life would be so simple, wouldn’t it? What if that was all he had to do, that dance, asking with his whole body, bringing the coffee, cream, tea, juice . . . and dancing off again. He lets himself wish that for a minute.

After two hours, one taco and too many drinks, the place begins to shut down around him. He notices, but waits for the bartender to tell him, wanting that contact to help pin him. “Closing out, buddy,” says the ex-boxer. And Leonard nods and pays, taking his time. He steps outside the bar and enjoys the coolness of the night. He lingers out there a moment, and is surprised to see Dan leaving, while others are still cleaning up inside.

He likes the man’s shoulders-back kind of walk. What does he see in that walk? A peacock? A readiness? A challenge? That’s it, a walking challenge to the world: so what I’m an ex-con, ex-boxer . . . whatever else I am, whatever I’ve done, whatever I haven’t done, so what? Here I am. There might be some anger in that walk, and maybe that anger needs an outlet, four outlets in three years, four young girls who had to pay?

Leonard finds he’s walking behind Dan, about fifteen paces. He didn’t mean to follow him, but it’s a good study. He probably wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t for the drinking, but he shrugs that off. He’s letting Dan teach him all about Dan. This could be good – for the possibility of a dream, but he shouldn’t push hard on that, has to let it come, just come. Dan has turned a corner onto a darker, smaller street. Leonard could stop now, stop and call Betha and report, but he has nothing to report, so he finds himself turning the corner to follow the killer-diller.

As Leonard turns the corner, he is grabbed – two strong hands balled in his jacket – and he is pushed hard against the door of a closed laundry, his head bouncing off the door. Dan Melios, teeth bared in anger, pulls Leonard toward him and then bangs him back against the closed door again, saying, “You a cop?! Ha?!”

“No! I . . . ”

“You followin’ me?”

“No! I just . . ."

Melios sends a hand to Leonard’s throat, choking off his words. “You a fucking private cop? Ha?” His hard grip doesn’t allow an answer, and then he withdraws his hand to slap Leonard, bloodying his nose. He’s at his Leonard’s throat again, digging in, furious. “I seen you watchin’ me in the bar, asshole!” When he slaps Leonard again, the bigger man shoves Melios back a step, but the boxer hits him in the forehead with a hard jab and grabs his throat again, and Leonard feels the pain and shock and something else. He feels like he might die, this man might kill him, and he thinks, in a quarter of a second, about the girls, battered and choked, and along with the pain and fear, anger shows up, and hate.

He sends both his large hands to Melios’ throat, and now the smaller man is choking, and Leonard turns and pushes himagainst the building and then turns him around and throws an arm lock on his throat from behind, and the man is trying to tear at that arm, kicking backward and flailing his hands wildly now, and Leonard feels the man’s panic and thinks – is that what the girls felt? And he wonders if he should do it, make this man die, and then all of this would end. But Melios’ movements are weakening, and Leonard relaxes his large arms and shoulders and lets the man slide to the sidewalk where he falls and breathes like some broken engine, sputtering, coughing. Leonard watches the boxer, then steps away, heading for the lit street and the way home.

As he walks, he calls Betha, then thinks he should have waited, so he would have more breath.

“Sorry . . . to call you late . . . ”

I was waiting for it. You sound . . . ”

“Yeah, I’m out of breath. I was following him home . . . just to see him, plant him . . . in my mind, and he turned on me. He hits hard.”

“Oh, shit! He beat you up? Where is he?”

“He’s on his ass . . . and I’m walking away.” Leonard turns to look behind him.

“He’s not following, and I’m going to change streets, just in case . . .”

“You weren’t supposed to get in his face!  Now what?!”

“He doesn’t know who I am. Nobody saw us.”

“Tell me where you are and I’ll pick you up.”

“No. No, I need the walk.”

“Leonard, It’s miles.”

“I need the walk.” 

The dream lingers, unchanging. A fence? He is looking through what seems to be a rusted fence, and beyond it is darkness, but with . . . pinpoints of light. And somehow . . . the top of a tree? Swaying with the wind? There’s no logic, even to the placement of things. But this is not an ordinary dream. It’s not. It’s a viewing. He feels that. He wakes and sleeps again and then his cellphone wakes him, and he’s pawing the phone off the night stand, glancing at the clock. It’s nearly noon. He says “Hi.” but the word is broken and he tries again, clearing his throat.

She asks, “How do you feel?”

“Said the woman to the punching bag.”

“Did you dream?”

 “There was something.”

“Describe it.”

“I need some time. Too groggy.”

“We have him, Leonard.”

“What?!” He sits up in bed, moving through the pain from the punches he took.

“They went in with a search warrant this morning. They found a kind of coin purse, a woman’s coin purse made of leather. Scratched, beat-up. They sent a picture to the girl’s parents. It was hers.”

“Jesus.”

“Found some drugs there, too, and there were hairs in the bed, her color. He knew he was busted, so he admitted she was there twice over the last week. Drugs. Sex. He’s still denying murder, but he’s shaky as hell and he’ll crack wide open. Go dream about that fence and we’ll hit him with everything.”

“What did he say about me? About the fight?”

He just said some big white guy jumped him in the dark and he hit the guy and ran home. You put some major bruises on his neck, and you should hear his voice. You almost killed him, for god’s sake, Leonard.”

“Maybe I should have. For a second I wanted to.”

“Don’t you say that. Don’t be an idiot. He’s done. We’ve got him. Listen, I have to go. They’re questioning him again, and they won’t let me in there ‘cause I was taken off the case, but I can see and hear what’s going on. Call me when you get something.” She hangs up, and he knows he can’t sleep anymore. He puts his feet on the floor and rises slowly, wincing at the pain. He needs an ice pack. He needs some breakfast. He needs to remember.

By late afternoon he feels the tiredness coming back, moving through him. He sits in the one cushioned chair in his room and closes his eyes, but that’s not doing it, so he moves to the bed, lies down, stretches out, looks at the ceiling, and, in time, he’s there again, not dreaming, remembering the dream, but, no, not a dream, remembering the viewing. He’s certain now, continuing to stare upward as the ceiling disappears and he’s staring through that rusted fence or . . . grate, staring upward. That’s it. staring up at the sky, the night sky. Staring up like the murdered girls were staring. He feels his heart increase. He is lying down somewhere. It’s cold. He is looking up at the sky – through a rusted grate. Those points of light he saw – they’re stars, and there is the tree, just the top of a tall pine, moving slightly in the wind, and he realizes he’s not himself. His heart pumps even harder now, as he comes to feel certain, certain that he is looking through the eyes of someone else. The killer? The girl before she died?

A grate in the ground means a building somewhere – a place near trees, a place where nobody goes. Abandoned place? He tries Betha, but she doesn’t pick up.  He asks this of the motel owner: abandoned building in some forested area, and she sends him to one of her permanent guests, an old man, threadbare man.  “Used to be some buildings in the woods north of town. Used to be a . . . Well, there was a school out there for years, but that shut down. Atrem Road runs along the woods there. There was a sawmill, too, but they carried most of that away when they moved the operation . . . ”

He calls while on his way and lets Betha know where he’s going, lets her know about the grate, and she is excited, shouting in a whisper. “Oh, god, if it’s there, if the body is there, he’s done, Leonard, he’s finished.” She gives him clear directions to the abandoned buildings and says, “This is coming to a head now, and they’re going to let me have him, Captain said. They’ve set him up and I . . . But I’ll get to you as soon as I can, and meanwhile I’ll call the person who’s leading the search for the girl and tell her I got an anonymous tip, and she’ll send people out there . . . Leonard? Watch for the . . . ”  They were losing their signal, and he found himself speeding, pulling toward the forest, the buildings, the grate . . .

In twenty-five minutes, he’s leaving the sight of the old school, no grating there. He drives on and sees a nearly weeded-over entrance into the forest and takes it as far as he can, then leaves his car and hurries on, his chest tightening as he comes upon what is left of the old sawmill. He feels a pull, a definite pull as he hurries around the half-fallen structure, watching the ground, seeing no grate, then he pauses, slowing his breath. He looks above and sees the trees, tall pines, just as in his viewing. He moves around the structure again, more slowly.

When he sees it, he stands still for a long while, an old, rusted grate in the ground. He knows it’s the one. And he knows someone is in there. He feels that and takes three, four steps. He points his flashlight as he reaches the grate, points it down. It’s her. Liya Pope, and she’s lying on her back, her face pointing upward to the grate, to the late light and the high trees, and she is naked and bruised about the neck, her eyes closed, almost peaceful, he thinks. He curls his fingers into the grating and lifts, and then tosses the heavy metal away into the weeds. She’s about six feet down. He puts his flashlight in his pocket and steps to the edge of the hole and turns, bracing his hands on the ground and then letting himself drop, landing on his feet just beside her. He retrieves his flashlight and studies her, studies her mouth which is slightly open, studied her breasts and doesn’t move his eyes, doesn’t move the light, and he sees what he would not let himself hope to see. He sees the rise of a slight and slow breath.

He moves close to her and speaks her name, touches her face, again, again. The eyes open slightly, not focusing, not seeing him. He takes off his jacket and covers her, studying her face one moment more, wanting to shout, to weep, but he turns to the side of the hole and leaps upward, looking for purchase on the edge, but it is slick and he falls back inside, falls beside her. When he stands again, he hears movement on the surface of the ground, steps, moving slowly, moving to the hole, and he holds his breath.

 He sees a tall uniformed police officer reach the edge of the hole and fill it with the glare of a very large flashlight. The cop changes the light to his other hand and draws his gun. Leonard has his hands above him, shielding himself from the wash of bright light. There are more footsteps above now, and people calling out, and the cop says to him, “Who the hell are you?”

And Leonard says, “She’s alive.”

Forty minutes later, Betha arrives. The girl has been taken to the hospital, but the area is still full of police, lit brightly now, a dozen squad and detective cars parked at odd angles as a team studies the area. Leonard sits on the ground, leaning back on one of the cars. He is handcuffed and sore and dirty and so glad, so glad because the paramedic had said, “She’ll make it,” when he asked him. 

He watches Betha coming toward him, sees her intercepted by a female police sergeant who points at him and says to Betha, “So, detective, he says he knows you?”

Betha nods, not breaking her stride toward him. “Yeah. He’s with me. Take off the cuffs.” In a moment he is standing, rubbing his wrists as he and Betha hold their stare. No one can overhear them now.

“I have to tell the whole story to the Captain, Leonard. I don’t think he can keep you out of it. Sorry.”

He nods wearily, sighs a long sigh. “Just so she stays alive.”

“I’ll be busy here a while,” she says. “Can you make it back to the motel?” And he nods, and she keeps her deep stare on him. “Thank you, Leonard. You hear me?  I’m saying thank you, from all of us and from her parents, and . . . That doesn’t say it all. Not even one little piece of it.”

The stare holds. He nods, then starts his walk to the car. She waves a cop over and tells the man to walk with him and make sure he can pull out of there. She watches Leonard until he’s out of sight and keeps staring in his direction.

 She doesn’t come to the motel until three hours later. He’s packed, lying on the bed, dozing, until she knocks, and he rises and lets her in. They sit at a small uneven table, both weary, but she still carries that same deep stare for him, and she tells him, “She came fully awake in the hospital.  She knew her attacker, knew of him, one Thomas Trasker. He has a three-truck rodent business in the town, for years. He even ran for city council once. Almost won. We knocked on his door. He was home with his wife, teen kids. We asked him about Liya Pope, and he fell on the floor, literally, fell to his knees. You should have seen the looks – the wife, the kids. They knew zero about this, of course. What a scene.”

“Melios?” he asks.

And she says, “Happy man. Not just free. Happy she’s alive. Happy tears. I think it’s true love.” They both grin a bit, and then grow serious again. Betha doesn’t know what else to say, so she says, “Let’s settle up. Give me your receipts.” 

“You already paid the motel, that’ll do it.”

“Leonard . . . you know what I owe you, what this city owes you.”

“I don’t give a damn what Waukegan, Illinois owes me.  It’s what you owe me.”

“What? What can I say?”

“Nothing. Not a word. I want just one thing for all this. You ready?”

She nods, wondering, and he says, “I want to finish that kiss we never finished, ‘cause you stepped back.” He’s completely serious, hard-looking about this.

She’s quiet a moment and then begins to shake her head. “I told you then, Leonard, about what I need to do, about the Chicago force, and . . . ”

“I’m not talking about the goddamn future. This is about the past, Betha, about that one kiss, that’s all. I want it in full, a long one, a deep one. I want us to finish it.” He stands up then, and waits.

She stares a while, then also stands, looking tough about this, but her eyes are moist. “Tongue?” she asks.

“You bet.”

“Hands?”

“Just on your back. Ready?”

Another long stare, and then she takes a step closer, and he moves in and it’s on, deep and tight and long, as they press together and his hands are on her back and in her hair, and she’s kissing him back and hard, and is in his hair now, and there is nothing still, not for a second, but all moving, and moving, and moving, two mouths as one mouth, tongues like slippery creatures, mad creatures, on and on, and when they finally break, they’re out of breath, staring hard again, almost moving into each other, but not. Not. He slowly steps away, then moves to the bed where his suitcase lies. He picks it up and walks to the door, not looking at her. Her eyes drop two tears as she watches him.

As he reaches the door and opens it, there is a war inside of him: say something, kiss her again, wait, but he takes a full breath and opens the door wider, thinking he wants her more than anything, but, hey, listen, the woman has Chicago on her mind.