Now it’s Icarus.
I named him.
I’ve been reading Auden lately and came across his poem “Musée des Beaux Arts.” In it he considers the cold-hearted indifference of daily life to the tragedy befalling others all around us. And it struck deep into my heart. It was all I’d been feeling since the bridge collapsed. Since my life collapsed onto the muddy banks and into the muddy waters of the Mississippi.
Daedalus, the story goes, had constructed wings of feathers attached with wax for himself and his son, Icarus, so they could escape imprisonment. Daedalus had warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, but, caught up in the glory of his own good fortune, Icarus ignored his father’s advice. The wax melted, the feathers came off, and Icarus plunged into the sea.
Auden considered the indifference of those who might have seen the fall of Icarus, an indifference I see every day of my life:
I’d mentioned this to Detective Phelps in a vain attempt to explain the indifference to my tragedy that emanates from the world around me. The indifference that infuriates me. The indifference that makes me want to shake them. To shout at them. To show them my hell.
But I guess he only took away the image of Icarus falling.
So now the killer is Icarus.
And once again the cops and the media have gotten it wrong.
Icarus the mythological character falls.
Icarus the murderer does not.
In that first meeting, after Phelps had confirmed what I had seen — confirmed my psychic ability — I began to feel sick. My head dropped between my knees.
Phelps quickly kneeled by my side. With a gentle push, he helped me sit upright again. “Take some deep breaths.”
I did as I was told, swallowing down slow waves of bile as they rose in my throat. After I assured him I was better, Phelps returned to his chair.
He pulled a notepad and pen out of his inside coat pocket, flipped the notepad open, and clicked the pen. “You told the dispatcher that you saw the man in a dream, is that correct?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a dream. I was awake. I’d just woken up and this image popped into my head of a man in a Twins jersey facedown on the rocks.”
“Did you see anything else?”
I tried to revive the picture, but my mind was racing. “I... like what?”
“Anything. Anything unusual.”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I probably saw what you guys found. But I did notice that his wrists may have been tied at some point. There were lines of blood where whatever had bound them had cut through the skin.”
“Do you know what might have been used? Handcuffs? A rope? A cord of some kind?”
“No idea.”
“How did you know it was the Short Line Bridge?”
“I used to bike a lot around here. I’m a professor — or was — at the U and I’d go biking over lunch. The paths go everywhere. If I wasn’t on sabbatical I’d probably bike to work.”
“A professor of what?”
“Music.”
Phelps nodded as if that had relevance. Then he frowned.
“Have you had visions like this before?”
“No. Never.”
I had nothing to hide.
For several days after the first vision, I fought sleep. Drifted off at times, but never for more than a minute or two. And I never woke to the horror of a new image. A new body.
But one week to the day after the first vision, I failed.
I fought sleep and failed.
And the horror returned.
The second one:
The view is from above, looking down on West River Road, a twisty two-lane parkway that skirts the Mississippi like a shadow and runs directly beneath the Washington Avenue Bridge, the two-level link between the East and West Banks of the University of Minnesota. The lower deck bears cars, the upper deck students, either on foot or on bikes.
The fallen radiance of a whitish-blue streetlight adds a high-definition vividness to the scene below the bridge. To the body facedown on the centerline of the road. To a pair of blue jeans and a gray hooded sweatshirt mostly hidden by a navy blue backpack that is still strung from his shoulders. To a baseball cap lying upside down in a pool of blood that has settled in the nearest tire depression in the asphalt. To the wind-blown leaves that tumble down the road, some already mired in the ripening blood. To the arms that stick out from the body like dead branches. To the dark lines that surround the wrists like black tourniquets.
I wake again with my arms over my head in a broken halo, my legs splayed, my back aching, my head turned to the side.
3:28 a.m.
Phelps answers on the third ring. I tell him what I have seen.
By noon, Phelps and Lewis were back in my concrete room. The body was where I had said it would be.
I gave them the same answers as in the first interview.
Then Lewis piped up.
“Do you have a job?” he said.
I looked up at him. He stood near the piano again, his arms folded across his chest like Mr. Clean.
“I told you before. I’m on extended leave. A grief sabbatical, you might say. Since the accident I’ve been having... coping issues.” I took a long drag on my cigarette. My hand shook.
“Get a good night’s sleep last night?” It carried an undercurrent of mockery.
I glared at him. “I fight sleep, Detective. I wasn’t born with these bags under my eyes.”
I could feel Phelps staring at me. He began nodding. His lips puffed out as he pushed them together.
Lewis took a long, deep breath. “Did you know the victims you saw in your dreams?”
“They weren’t dreams.” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. “But no, I didn’t. Are you going to get another search warrant?”
Phelps put his hands up as if to repel an unseen enemy. “No, no. We’re all done with that. We trust you, Mr. Enright, but we don’t understand how you do it.”
I fought tears. “Join the crowd.”
Phelps pushed down on both knees and rose to his feet. “I think that’s enough, then. Thank you again for helping us with these cases.”
I didn’t get up. They saw themselves out.
It took me six months to begin to live again.
Not live.
Function.
Barely.
Like an old car left out in the brutal, sub-zero cold. The winter cold that only added to my paralysis. My hibernation. My dislocation.
Coming out only long enough to see my shadow.
To leave the suburbs.
To leave my dreams.
To come to the ruins.
From that first meeting:
“Where were you last night, Mr. Enright?”
It was Lewis. He was leaning against the piano, his arms folded. His tone implied a different question.
“Do you think I did it?”
“We have to check all avenues,” Phelps said. I began to see their roles. It was the detective version of good cop/bad cop. A cheap interrogation trick. Something out of the movies.
Still, I became worried.