Last Call Page 4

  Duncan looked back at me with a questioning expression.

  “The balloons are hovering by the closet doors,” I whispered.

  Duncan nodded and pushed me back out into the hallway. Then he splayed his hand to let me know I should stay there. The others, their curiosity getting the better of them, had made their way to us, and everyone other than Duncan was standing in the hallway at this point. The place was so quiet—at least for normal ears—you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Duncan’s breathing had sped up and now he had his own bouquet of balloons hovering above and around his head. I held my breath as he grabbed one of the closet door handles and yanked open the right-hand side. It folded open with a loud clang that made me jump, and Duncan aimed his gun into the closet. The extrusion of the folded open door blocked my view of part of the interior, but I could see enough to tell that the closet, like the rest of the room, was empty. Duncan visibly relaxed, and I heard exhalations from the group behind me. I remained tense until I realized all the balloons had disappeared.

  Had I misinterpreted them? Clearly, I had rattled the nerves of the others in the house, who were now muttering and mumbling under their breath. If I’d focused hard enough, I probably could have heard what they were saying, but I tuned it out. I had a pretty good idea what they were thinking, and none of it shed me in a favorable light. After a few seconds of this grumbling, the group behind me all turned and headed back out to the main part of the house and the dead man, leaving just me and Duncan there in the empty bedroom.

  Feeling stupid and certain the others were now convinced I was a useless lunatic, I entered the room and stood next to Duncan in front of the empty closet. The balloons weren’t gone after all. Duncan’s were, now that his breathing had slowed to a more normal pace, but the original balloons, their colors all gray and black, were in the closet, bobbing up and down along the back wall. The open closet door had blocked them from my view.

  “What the hell?” I muttered, staring at the balloons.

  “What?” Duncan asked.

  I winced at him. “I thought the balloons had all disappeared. You even had some behind your head right before you opened that closet door. I suspect if I’d turned and looked at the guys behind us, I might have seen some there, too. But yours disappeared once you saw the closet was empty, most likely because your breathing returned to something more normal. I thought the ones I saw hovering in the hallway earlier, and then here in front of the closet door, had disappeared, too. But they’re still here, Duncan. They’re hovering inside this closet. This empty closet. I don’t understand it, but something about this . . . or maybe something with me is wrong.”

  “How can you tell which balloons were which?” Duncan asked.

  “They’re different colors and sizes. And there are different numbers of them. The ones I first saw in the hallway that are now in the closet are black and gray. There’s no color to them, and they’re small. Yours were larger and colorful—blue and green and red.”

  I stood there, staring at the balloons and the closet’s interior and gave my synesthesia full rein. At one point I even closed my eyes to block out the image of the balloons, forgetting that I can see my synesthetic images with my eyes open or closed. Suddenly, I felt as if I’d been pushed backward. The feeling was so real that I flung my arms out to try to maintain my balance or grab on to something. I opened my eyes and quickly regained my equilibrium. I’d felt that odd pushing sensation before.

  “Remember the Cooper case?” I said to Duncan. He nodded, eyeing me curiously. “When I stood in front of the dresser of that little boy who was missing, I felt a pushing sensation, as if a hand was actually shoving me back away from the thing. It was because the drawers had recently been opened.”

  A light bulb went on in my head then, and I spun on my heel and headed for the master bedroom. It was a good-sized room, and I stood at the foot of the bed for a moment, surveying the entire space and letting my synesthesia work. When I looked at the wall that should’ve been the back side of the closet in the other room, I experienced another strange physical sensation, only this time it felt like I was falling, as if the floor beneath me had suddenly disappeared.

  I hurried back to the empty room, a silent but watchful Duncan on my heels. Staring into the closet at the bobbing bouquet of balloons, I said, “I think there’s a void, a space of some sort between this closet and the master bedroom.”

  Duncan said, “There might be a chase, a channel for the mechanicals or ductwork.”

  I went out into the hallway again and walked over to the thermostat I’d noticed on the wall earlier. I flipped the heat off and then returned to the empty bedroom. The balloons were still bobbing up and down in front of the back wall of the closet. There was a rhythm to them, an almost frantic up and down, up and down, up and down.

  “I need you to go out into the hallway and shut the door to this room,” I said to Duncan. This was met with some unintelligible grumbling, but he did as I asked. I watched the balloons for a moment, but they stayed the same. Then I walked over and flipped off the light in the room.

  With the silence and darkness surrounding me, many of my synesthetic reactions disappeared. I closed my eyes and tried to steady my own breathing the best I could. After a few seconds I heard it, and even with my eyes closed I saw it. I reached over and flipped the light back on, and then opened the door to let Duncan back in.

  “I don’t know who’s behind that closet wall,” I said to him, “and I don’t know how you can get to them, but someone is in there, someone who is very nervous and afraid. I hear a racing heartbeat and see the rapidly pulsing light that goes with it.”

  Duncan once again went on alert. Holding his gun in front of him, he studied the inside of the closet. The floor was concrete, the walls and ceiling were drywall, and there was one long metal shelf—completely empty—that spanned the closet from one side to the other. A single right-angle brace was located beneath the shelf near the center of the closet, providing support. Beneath it, I could see a seam in the back wall that went from the brace to the floor.

  I reached past Duncan and grabbed the brace, first pushing, then pulling on it. When I pulled, we heard a distinct click, and the right-hand side of the closet wall gave way. It swung outward as Duncan grabbed my arm and pulled me back. He aimed his gun into the empty space. It was dark, but despite the lack of light, I felt a sense of openness about the space. I took out my cell phone and activated my flashlight app, shining it into the area behind the closet.

  The light revealed a mattress, a stuffed bear, an empty paper plate, a plastic cup, and two small bare feet.

  Chapter 4

  “This is the police,” Duncan yelled. “Come out with your hands up.”

  Out in the main part of the house, I heard someone say, “What the hell?” and the others returned, congregating in the hallway outside the door to the room.

  We all stood frozen, eyes riveted on the closet, but nothing happened. After a few seconds, Duncan looked over at me, mouthed the word light, and did a gimme gesture with his free hand. I handed the phone to him, and he aimed the light into the closet, shining it into the area we couldn’t see. When I saw him drop his gun hand, I stepped closer so I could see what he saw.

  Inside the space—arms wrapped around her legs, chin resting on her knees, dressed in a flannel nightgown—was a young girl of maybe eight or nine, pale in color, with dark brown hair. She didn’t look at us. After a few seconds, she began to rock back and forth slowly.

  Duncan turned and looked at me with his eyebrows raised. “What the hell?” he said.

  Their curiosity piqued, the others came into the room to see what we had found. I heard someone mutter, “Well, I’ll be damned.” Someone else said, “Go figure.” And a third voice, which I recognized as Ortega’s, simply said, “Sorry about that.”

  I focused on the girl, searching for any synesthetic feedback I could get from her. The pulsing red light was still there, flashing faster than
before. And the balloons hovered over her head, wafting up and down in conjunction with her rapid breathing. Her eyes stared straight ahead. A smell emanated from her, a mixture of soap and sweat that made me feel a shroud of dampness descend over me.

  And then I saw an image of a door slamming shut. It was so vivid that for a moment I thought the closet had somehow closed itself. Then an odd, keening moan filled the air. It took me a second to figure out if it was a real sound. It was, and it was heartbreaking.

  Duncan holstered his gun and squatted down beside the child. “Hey there,” he said in a calm, low voice. “Who are you?”

  The girl didn’t answer. She continued to rock, staring straight ahead.

  “What’s your name?” Duncan said. Still, there was no response. Duncan reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder.

  The child exploded into action, her arms and legs flying in all directions. The keening moan turned into a loud scream.

  “Whoa!” Duncan said, falling back onto his butt. Linz and the two officers started to move closer to the child, but Duncan held up a hand to stop them.

  Almost as quickly as she had turned into a human version of the Tasmanian devil, the girl once again withdrew into a tiny, rocking ball of unresponsiveness. Duncan looked over at me with a perplexed expression.

  “I think she’s in shock . . . or maybe autistic?” I said.

  “What the hell is she doing locked away in this little cubbyhole?” Duncan asked rhetorically. “And what are we supposed to do with her? Who is she?” He got back to his feet and looked over at the others in the room. “Were any of you aware the victim had a child?”

  There was some mumbling, some shuffling of feet, a couple of abashed expressions, and several shaking heads. No one said a word. The two uniformed officers both looked away. Duncan got up from the floor and approached Miguel Ortega. “You,” he said, jabbing a finger toward the man’s chest, “start talking to people and doing some inquiries. Find out who this kid is and why she’s stashed away in a hidden cubbyhole.”

  Ortega nodded spastically, turned, and pushed his way past the others into the hallway.

  I looked at Duncan and said, “I think the fewer people there are in here, the better she’s going to do.”

  Duncan nodded and gave a pointed look to the others. Hank Johnson, no doubt eager to escape Duncan’s accusatory looks and tone, spun on his heel and fled the room. Linz and the others backed out slowly, reluctant to depart from this curious scene. As soon as everyone had passed over the threshold, Duncan shut the door to the room. Then he turned back to me and said, “Any ideas on who she is and what we should do with her?”

  I stared at the girl for a moment, letting what little synesthetic reaction I had to her come out. There wasn’t much. The bland, faded balloons still hovered, and the red pulsing heart light was still there, but otherwise there was nothing. I approached her and knelt down on one knee where Duncan had been before, an awkward move given my crutches and cast. “My name is Mack,” I said, once I was settled and had set my crutches aside. “I don’t know your name, so for now I’m going to call you Little Girl, okay?”

  That door image appeared to me again, fleeting, but this time it remained slightly ajar. I reached out and placed a hand on the girl’s, where it wrapped around the leg closest to me. I half-expected her to jerk away from my touch, but she didn’t so much as flinch. Her rocking stopped, and the door image came to me again. It was open a smidge wider this time. After a second of indecision, I decided to go for broke. I leaned in and took the other hand as well, unwrapping her arms from around her legs. “Come on out of there, Little Girl,” I said, my voice soft. “You’re safe with me.”

  She didn’t look at or acknowledge me other than to allow me to take her hands in mine. I gave them a little squeeze and then let them go. “I need my hands to help me get up,” I said. Then I grabbed my crutches and struggled back to a standing position. Once I was balanced, I reached down with one hand. To my surprise, she took it, stood, and stepped out of the closet. Despite this cooperation, her blue eyes remained unfocused, staring off to one side, looking at nothing.

  I glanced at Duncan, who stood by watching in silence. I released the girl’s hand and took a better look inside the closet cubbyhole. When I realized there was an overhead light with a string hanging down from it, I pulled it, and the space was more fully revealed. It was larger than I had thought initially, approximately six feet deep and eight feet wide. The walls were padded with a foam material that would likely soundproof the area. There was a mattress on the floor covered with a worn sheet and a soft, plush blanket. Beside the mattress was a water bottle that was half full, and a bowl that contained some dry Cheerios. Near the other end of the mattress was a stuffed teddy bear that was missing one eye. Alongside the bear was a shoebox full of crayons, dozens of them in various states of use: some broken, some whole, some worn down to tiny nubs, while others looked almost brand-new. There was also a loosely stacked pile of plain white paper and some well-used coloring books. Hanging on the wall at the back of the cubbyhole were several pieces of paper with crayoned scribbles on them, none of them bearing any resemblance to an actual figure or object. They weren’t drawings; they were the mindless, colorful scribbles one might expect from a two-year-old.

  The room was very warm, and I took off my coat and tossed it over by the door—scene contamination be damned. Then I ditched my crutches again and got down on my hands and knees. I crawled into the cubbyhole, grabbed the teddy bear, the box of crayons, and several blank pieces of paper. When I came back out, Little Girl was still standing where I’d left her, staring off into space with that blank expression. I placed the papers and the crayons on the floor outside the closet, near her feet. Then I reached up and took hold of one of her arms. As gently as I could, I tugged on it, and she obediently dropped to the floor, her legs tucked beneath her. I put the teddy bear against her chest and wrapped her arm around it so she could hold it. I half-expected her arm to go limp and for the bear to drop, but she hung on to it. I saw a shift in her eyes; her gaze moved to my face, and for a few seconds, there was some focus there, a fleeting glimpse of the child locked inside.

  I looked over at Duncan. “Would you be willing to leave me alone with her in here for a little while?”

  Duncan looked hesitant. “I don’t know, Mack,” he said. “We don’t know anything about her. She could be prone to outbursts of violence for all we know. And while she’s not all that big in size, based on the way she shoved my arm away earlier, she’s quite strong.”

  “You’ll be just outside the door,” I said. “If I need any help, I can holler. Why don’t you go finish processing your scene and let me see what I can do here? Let me know if you find out anything about her, like a name.”

  Duncan still looked uncertain. “She’s a potential material witness,” he said. “She might be our 9-1-1 caller.” He hesitated and winced. “She could be more than that, Mack,” he said, his voice dripping with hidden meaning.

  I knew he was suggesting the child might also be the shooter. “I realize that. But I doubt you’re going to get much out of her at this point and there are no weapons here. Let me see what I can do.” Duncan’s frown deepened. “Go on,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  He finally acquiesced, but I could tell he did so reluctantly. As soon as he was gone and had closed the door behind him, I shifted my attention back to the girl. I grabbed a piece of paper and placed it on the floor in front of me. After sifting through the box of crayons, I chose a red, a blue, a green, and a brown one. Then I drew a simple, childlike picture of some grass with red and blue flowers growing up from it. Given all the floral scents in her toiletries, I assumed she would like flowers.

  She ignored me at first, staring off to one side, seemingly unfocused. But as I drew my fifth flower, she suddenly shifted her gaze to my picture. I paused in my efforts long enough to take a piece of paper and place it in front of her. Then I nudged the box of crayons closer. She
began to rock again, moving slowly back and forth.

  “Can you make a picture?” I said.

  She stopped rocking, staring at the blank white page before her. I went back to my own drawing and started filling in the blue sky. After a minute or two, she set the one-eyed teddy bear aside, reached into the box of crayons, and withdrew a black one. Then she proceeded to draw a series of wild black circles, a maelstrom of darkness. I continued with my own drawing, sneaking peeks at hers every few seconds. After filling most of the page with the wild black scribbles, she traded the black crayon for a red one and made a small red circle in the middle of the page. Then she drew red lines emanating from the circle toward the edges of the page. The red crayon was returned to the box, and she wrapped her arms about her legs and rested her chin on her knees. Then she began to rock again.

  I picked up her drawing and studied it. To me, the image seemed unmistakable: a dark cloud of blackness with a bright red drop of blood at its center, sprays of blood spurting out. Ironically, it was not unlike the synesthetic imagery I experienced in response to the sound of a gunshot.

  I turned the picture around so it was facing her and said, “Did you see someone get shot?”

  Her rocking ceased for a moment, and for a few seconds, her blue eyes focused on mine. They were huge, rimmed with long, dark lashes. Her pupils were dilated, and despite the lack of any real expression, her eyes were wide, making her look frightened, wary, and alert. It didn’t last. The brightness faded, and in an instant, she once again withdrew into whatever world existed behind that blank façade.