“Yes, that’s my partner. He’s another detective in my department.”
“You’ve told Agnew as well?”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s why my partner is over there.”
Looking pale and distraught, she asked, “Why would he kill both of them?”
“That’s what we must determine, and, of course, the autopsy is a part of that investigation,” she noted. “We need to get every bit of information we can to make sure we know exactly what’s been going on here and why this happened.”
“What could possibly be going on?” she asked. “Why would he kill two?”
“And that’s one of the many questions we have to get answered,” she explained. “Are you sure you’ll be okay here alone? Maybe I could go get a neighbor for you?”
“No, no, I’ll be fine,” she said. “You go figure this out. I need to bury my daughter, before my time comes.”
And such a note of pain filled her voice that Kate didn’t really know what to say. Death notifications were always the worst part of the job, and it was better if one didn’t get too heavily involved. But, at the same time, what do you do when you have a situation like with this poor woman, all alone now with nobody to help her? “Look. People can help, if you do need something.”
“No,” the mother repeated, with yet another wave of her hand. “It’s fine.”
Another thought occurred to Kate. “Maybe Agnew would like your help with the children?”
The woman seemed concerned, considered it.
“But look after yourself first.” With that, Kate took her leave. She stepped out onto the front steps, then realized she was leaving empty handed. At the door, she looked back and asked, “Do you know whether your daughter had an address book, a laptop, or anything like that?”
“A laptop, yes, of course,” she replied. “She kept all her business there. Do you need it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kate said immediately, “I do. One thing we’ll need to figure out is who else might have known that they went jogging in the morning, for example.”
“I have no idea,” she stated, “but we all knew. They’ve been doing it for years. They laughed about it. They used to do some racing for fun, as they were very competitive, but there was never any animosity between them.”
“Was it always just the two of them?”
She frowned, then looked at Kate. “You know what? I don’t think so. It seems like another woman went with them as well. But something happened to that, yet I can’t remember just what.” Her face lit up. “She had twins. That’s what happened. I forgot for a moment.”
“Good for her,” Kate said. “Hard to get back to the same running schedule after that.”
She nodded. “Let me go get the laptop for you.”
“Oh, and if she has a cell phone.”
The mother stopped. “She would have had that with her.”
“Right,” Kate noted. “I’m sure we have it then.”
Relief passed over the mother’s face. “That’s good. I know it shouldn’t matter, but somehow it does. She was so connected to that phone that I think I’d actually like to bury it with her.” And then she turned and dashed off to get the laptop.
“Bury the woman with her phone,” Kate whispered to herself. “That’s a new one.” Did people love their technology so much now that they would want to be buried with it? Personally she’d just like to be cremated and her ashes taken out to the woods and thrown back whence she came. But she knew burial rituals were important to a lot of people; they’d just never been important to her.
*
Simon St. Laurantopened his eyes and stared around his bedroom. It was early Saturday morning, Kate had left on a case hours ago, but his heart raced, as if under attack. He had an instinctive need to jump up and to race away. But this was definitely his bedroom, and nothing was wrong here. He slowly sat up, his body wanting to run and run and run. He shook off the sensation and hopped out of bed. Then slowly, almost as if in slow motion to combat the panic in his brain—still telling him to run—he headed to the bathroom. It was barely light outside. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but it felt like the residue of some sensation.
Somepsychicsensation.
Shaking his head, he washed his hands and crawled back into bed again. As soon as he closed his eyes, it was like he was racing down a path, his feet pounding on the dirt beneath him. But he was laughing, and there was something light about the movements. And he realized that it wasn’t him; it was somebody else. When he heard the laughter, he realized it wasn’t his laughter either. A woman’s.
He turned to look and saw another person, a woman running just behind him, not close enough to actually see as he would like though. The air was fresh and bright, and joy filled his heart. He smiled because, for the first time ever, it seemed that this psychic experience was about something great. Most of the time his visions involved connecting with pain and torture.