“I’m here. Now tell me why you are,” Bell quipped when he arrived moments later with his shirt buttoned, his hair combed and a pair of loafers on his feet.
He was handsome but had the look of man that didn’t care much for dating. No ring on his finger, Jude noticed.
“I need to ask you to have an open mind, Detective because I’m going to tell you something that possibly defies your understanding of the world,” Jude started, already doubting her ability to convince this clearly hard-headed man that her sister had seen the murderer in a vision.
Bell sighed and looked at her.
“Listen, I’ve got dinner plans in a half hour so cut the bullshit, Miss Porter.”
Jude frowned and bit back her retaliation.
She held a photo out for Bell and he took it, bringing it closer to his face.
“Looks like the silhouette of a man in a doorway. Is this relevant to something?”
“My sister painted this after we visited the cabin where your sister was murdered,” Jude explained, hating the story and knowing if she were the one hearing it, she’d laugh out loud. “She has… visions. My mother did too, maybe you heard that. That’s how my mom found your sister, she saw…” Jude paused and then spit the words out, wishing she could prove them. “She saw ghosts, and the morning she found your sister, Rosemary appeared to her and led her to that cabin. She panicked and took the knife and ran away.”
Kurt snorted and looked her in the eye.
“Really? You showed up at my apartment with a photo of a blurry nothing and a ghost story?”
He stood up, setting the photo back in her lap.
“Listen to me, god-damn-it,” she spat, and a rage erupted in her, so hot and acrid she jumped to her feet, ready to scream and claw his face if he didn’t give her the twenty minutes he promised.
It was suddenly all too much, her mother being alive, a lifetime of lies, the injustice of the world, poor scared Hattie, and her twin fighting someone else’s war.
Bell took a step back, holding up his hands.
“Okay, I’m sorry. Don’t-” he paused looking at her balled fists, “do whatever it is you were about to do.”
He picked up the photo again.
“Your sister painted this and what? You think it tells us something we didn’t already know?”
“That’s the man who killed Rosemary,” Jude said, her emotion barely held at bay. She poked a finger at the image. “Look at his hands.”
Bell brought the photo closer, squinting.
“Three fingers…” he mumbled, his eyes widening for just a moment. Jude saw something pass over his face, dismay perhaps, but then it was gone.
“Did you know him? Was there a local man that had only three fingers? He’d be missing his pinkie and ring finger on the left hand. Hattie said Rosemary knew her killer, she recognized him when he walked into that cabin.”
Kurt sighed and ran a hand through his hair, destroying his earlier comb job.
“Have you talked about this with anyone else?” he asked, holding the photo more tightly.
“No, but you recognize him, don’t you? Hattie is right.”
“Look.” Kurt handed her the photo. “There is a person in town with those characteristics, but everyone knew that. Your mother might have inserted that picture into your sister’s head for all I know to put the blame on someone else. This isn’t evidence, it’s just… I don’t even know what it is.”
“There’s more,” Jude insisted. She held up the photo and pointed at the little white object on the floor. “This was a hat your sister was wearing. It belonged to your mother. Wide brim with white lace. He took it.” Jude jabbed at the man’s silhouette. “He took it and has it somewhere in his home.”
“How could your sister possibly know that?”
Jude frowned.
“I don’t know, Detective, and for what it’s worth, I’ve never bought into this stuff either until now anyway because you know what? It’s real. The more I think about the world,” Jude waved her hand around, “what does make sense? How are we even here living and breathing? Why do dying people have miraculous recoveries? How do crippled men suddenly stand and walk again? I’ve always thought it’s all laid out clear as day, but that’s a lie. We tell ourselves that lie to feel safe, to believe we know what’s coming next. You could get hit and killed walking across that street. Poof you’re gone. But maybe you’re not gone. Most of us believe that, right? That there’s something after, and yet we have no room for belief in the mysteries right here with us.”
Jude stopped talking. Detective Bell watched her with a mingled sense of wonder and discomfort. He wiped the expression and tapped his watch.
“Time’s up,” he said.
“Take the picture. Think about what I’ve said. My number’s on the back.”
Before he could reply she turned and walked away.
Her next stop was the TV shop. Grimmel stood at a shelf of televisions talking animatedly to an older couple who both stared at the screens enthralled. Jude guessed they’d never owned a TV and were overwhelmed at the sheer idea, let alone the choices.
Jude remembered the first time she saw a television. They had gone to Gram Ruth’s for Thanksgiving dinner and there perched on a shining table in the middle of Gram’s pristine sitting room was a funny little box with metal horns.
Jude had only been four or five, but both she and Peter had stood with their noses almost pressed to the screen for an hour before their parents dragged them away. It had been their first glimpse of Howdy Doody, and Gram had been in rare form allowing them to watch the entire program. Not that anything else was on and even Jude’s parents were entranced by the little television though they never purchased one and years later when Gram tried to gift them a television, their father politely refused. Jude and Peter had begged him to change his mind, but he never did. Their mother told them someday televisions would be everywhere, and they’d remember their years without one fondly, which Jude had thought was a load of crap, but now she realized, her mother had been right.
Grimmel smiled and put a hand on the man’s shoulder, leading him toward the counter to complete his bill of sale. He had Peter’s face, those big sincere brown eyes and though Peter had never sold a thing in his life, he only needed to flash that smile and shine those puppy eyes to turn you into a puddle on the floor. Jude watched Grimmel and yearned for her twin brother. It didn’t happen often as an adult, the sense that she was missing, that without Peter she was only a half, but now and then the familiar longing crept in.
Vietnam. He had deployed ten months before and though she received letters every few weeks, she could never think of him without a niggling sense of fear. Men were dying in droves, hundreds, maybe thousands, atrocities reported every day. If she stepped up to Grimmel’s televisions she could no doubt find a station reporting on the tragedies happening in Vietnam at that moment.
Grimmel looked up and saw her, his smile growing wide - Peter’s smile. She pointed outside and held up her cigarettes, stepping out to the sidewalk for a smoke. She took a few long inhalations, leaning against the brick building, and watching the cars pass slowly down the street.
Grimmel opened the door a few minutes later, the bell tinkling, and ushered out the couple and a large box containing their new TV set. He carried it to their car, helped situate it in the trunk, and returned to Jude.