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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Adults
- Theme: Mystery
- Subject: Crime
- Published: 11/15/2018
Resurrection Of A Murder - Part 1 of 2
Born 1947, M, from Oceanside, United StatesResurrection Of A Murder
Chapter 1
“I need to report a murder,” he said to me.
I almost laughed, not because I thought it was funny, but because of who he was.
“So who’s the victim?” I asked while my right fingers whirled my pen around like a baton. Old habit.
Knoff looked embarrassed. “I don’t know.”
That surprised me. He had a reputation for detail.
“Then where and when did this murder take place?”
“I know it’s somewhere near a lake close by,” he said, hesitating, “but when exactly, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . it happened a long time ago.”
“You mean someone told you about a murder that happened many years ago and now you’re reporting it?”
“No.” His brown eyes darted around my office in the station house as if he was trying to find an escape route. Finally, he said, “It happened in a past life.”
Now, I had to grin. “Are we talking reincarnation here?”
Knoff leaned forward in the chair, his eyebrows bunched together like crumpled paper. “You’ve got to understand something, I know about these things.”
“I know you do. I’ve read your books.” Actually, I’d read only two of his seven books.
“I’ve been here before,” he said with emphasis, “even though, I’ve never traveled to this part of the country.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what was happening to him. “I knew it from the moment I drove into town the other day, I actually knew where things were. I even knew where the room was at the college where I was to lecture.”
“So you think you were a college student in this past life?”
He nodded. “Yes, and that’s when I died.”
“So you were the one who was murdered?”
He shook his head. “No, it was a woman. I was killed later.”
Oh, great, I thought. Now, we’re talking about two murders.
“Ok, Mr. Knoff, let’s go over this one step at a time. First off, why do you feel you have to report this murder?”
“Because,” he said, “I think I was involved.”
“How?”
“I was an accomplice.”
I put down my pen, leaned back in my chair and stared at the young man sitting before me. According to People Magazine, he was 25. His brown hair, which framed a face that looked almost childlike, fell straight down to his shoulders. It was hard to imagine this was the same person that had scared millions with his books.
He was wearing a tan leather vest over a flamingo pink shirt. On the vest were several peace symbols, plus Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters covering it like stickers on a grade-schooler’s notebook. His pants were loose-fitting, bell-bottom jeans, and on his feet he wore black sandals with no socks.
His entire look screamed the sixties, but it wasn’t only his clothes that had me wondering whether or not to take him seriously. This was Steven Knoff, one of the most famous supernatural/thriller writers in America, sitting in my office telling me he had been involved in a murder in a past life. This could be just research for another book, or he could be telling the truth. If so, it figures he’d find me with all the weird stuff I’ve had to deal with over the years.
“What made you decide to come forward?” I asked. Several scenarios ran through my head.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” he explained. “Actually, it’s been the same dream over and over again ever since I arrived here in Lakeview.”
“What are these dreams about?”
“I see the murder happen.”
He paused as if to see what my reaction would be.
“Go on,” I prodded.
“There are three people on the shore of a lake. One of them is the person I was in this past life. Another is a male, I’d say around college age, but with a beard and mustache, and the third is a blonde, older, maybe in her thirties. We’re laughing and drinking beer. Suddenly, there’s an argument between my companion and the woman. I see her slap him. He punches her. That’s when I try to intervene, but he knocks me aside. The next thing I know, I’m helping him bury her body.”
Knoff continued. “But that isn’t all of it. In my dream I see myself standing on the roof of a building in a city somewhere arguing with this same person. Next I’m falling.”
“So you think he also had something to do with your death . . . I mean with the death of this other person—the person in your dreams?”
He nodded. “I’m sure of it.”
I leaned back in my chair and picked up my pen from my desk and started twirling it again around my fingers. “This is an interesting story,” I said. “But why tell me?”
“Because,” he replied, “I believe the person who killed that woman and myself is still living right here in Lakeview.”
Chapter 2
We talked some more, then I told Knoff I’d look into it. “But first,” I told him, “I want you to see someone.”
“Who?” he asked suspicious.
“One of our local doctors.”
“I’m not crazy!” he hissed.
“No, he’s not that kind of doctor. He’s an eye doctor, but he also has special talents.”
“What kind?”
“He’s psychic.” Knoff’s eyebrows jumped. “If anyone can help us make the connection between what you’re seeing in your dreams, and what may have happened, he can.”
Actually, I wanted Knoff to see Sam so I could make sure that what he was telling me was the truth, and not just something his writer’s mind had dreamed up.
Knoff stood up. So did I.
I extended my right arm for a handshake. “I’ll let Doc know what’s going on and he’ll contact you.”
As we shook hands, I could see he was relieved that I had taken him seriously. Actually, I was more curious about who the perp would be if this turned out to be true.
Right after Knoff left, Billy, one of my young deputies, poked his crew cut head through the door. He was smiling as if he had just won the lottery.
“That was Steven Knoff, wasn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, boy, did you get his autograph?”
“Nope.”
Billy looked disappointed. “Why not?”
“Because he wasn’t here for that.”
“Then why did he come?”
Billy was a big fan of Knoff, but this was not something you discussed with a fan, even if he was your deputy.
“He was doing research for a book, ”I lied.
That made Billy’s eyes light up even more. “Oh, yeah! What’s it gonna be about?”
Suddenly, I felt cornered. “I don’t know!” I replied slightly annoyed. I hated being interrogated, especially when I had information I didn’t want to reveal. Billy’s expression fell.
“Don’t you have some work to do?” I said to him.
“Yeah, I do,” he mumbled, looking dejected. He turned slowly to leave.
“Wait a minute,” I called.
He faced me again.
“Tomorrow, I want you to go through our records in storage. Check the Missing Persons files. Start around 19xx. See if you can find any sheets on any women missing from this area who were never found. Start with January and go back, say, about five years.”
At first, Billy looked at me curiously, then his smile returned.
“Is that why Knoff was here—about a missing person?”
“No, but just do what I said.”
“Okay,” Billy nodded, but I could tell from his look he didn’t believe me.
He started to leave, then turned around again. “You want me to start tonight?”
“No, that’s okay,” I smiled and waved him out. “Go home to your wife. You can start tomorrow.”
Billy left and I called Doc Evens.
“Sam, I want you to meet me at Helen’s Bar and Grill tonight after you get off work. I need to talk with you about something.”
“Is this about Steven Knoff?” he asked.
“Jesus, Sam, I hate when you do that.”
I could hear him chuckle over the phone.
“My last patient is scheduled for 5:30,” he said. “I’ll meet you there about 6:15 or so.”
“Okay,” I said then hung up.
Like me, Sam had spent time in the big city before he decided he wanted the peace and quiet of country living and came to Lakeview. Unlike me, he had not been raised in the area. I met him one day shortly after I arrived back in the vicinity. That was about 18 months ago.
I was in Helen’s Bar and Grill complaining to my younger sister, Debbie, who was visiting at the time, that I couldn’t find the engraved pen one of the gals at my old precinct had given me when I retired after 20 years.
Suddenly, a deep but gentle voice behind me said, “Check under your washing machine.”
I turned around and that’s when I found myself facing what I can only describe as Santa Claus without his beard and mustache. His hair, wavy and white, was run through with faded streaks of blond, while his body continued with the Kris Kringle image—large and bear-like. He was looking at me with a grin the size of a Cadillac. I couldn’t help but smile back.
“How would you know where my pen is?” I asked.
He shrugged and with a casual wave of his chubby hand replied, “I’m psychic.”
I chuckled, but when I got back to my apartment and checked under my washing machine, sure enough, there was my pen! After that, we kept bumping into each other, usually at Helen’s during lunch time. Either I’d be going in as Sam was coming out, or vice versa. Sam loved their onion rings; I liked their half-pound burgers.
Finally, one day, we found ourselves eating there at the same time, so I asked him, “Are you really psychic?”
“Yep.” He scooped another onion ring smothered with steak sauce into his mouth then said, “It’s one of the reasons you’re here. Especially given your past history.”
My skin prickled with goose bumps. “What do you mean my past history? What do you know about me?”
“You’re here because you want to get away from your past. But you can’t. It’s going to follow you wherever you go.”
That was depressing. “You mean I have to keep dealing with all this weird crap?” I asked.
I thought coming here might finally put an end to everything, but now he was telling me it was going to continue.
He nodded. “But I am here to help you. Now tell me more about yourself.” So I did.
I told him that I had been born and raised about ten miles from here in Norwich. After high school, I went to college and took pre-law, then joined the Air Force and became an air policeman. After my four years were up, I came back to civilian life and joined the police in Chicago. That’s when all the weird stuff seemed to start. “Even as a rookie, I’d find myself in the middle of these crazy cases.”
“How so?”
I shrugged. “People who raised werewolves for pets; others who were haunted by demons, or ghosts; buildings that disappeared. Once, I even had a vampire try to recruit me.”
“How?”
“How else? A bite on the neck.”
“Obviously, he didn’t succeed.”
“No, because I had just eaten an Italian dinner with a lot of garlic bread.”
Sam nodded. He knew how garlic affected vampires.
“So you’re a full believer, then?” he asked.
“Yep, unfortunately.”
Sam nodded again.
“Later, after I made detective,” I said, “the weird stuff continued. Thank God, not all the time, but enough so that once my 20 years were up, I decided to come back here to the country and see if I could lead a normal life again. Lakeview had an opening for a chief of police, so I applied.”
“And we’re glad you did,” said Sam, as he continued to gobble onion rings like a wood shredder.
After that day, Sam and I became good friends, even though he loved to hunt and fish and I didn’t. Bowling was more my speed, though we did get together for a trip or two out to one of the local lakes. Surrounded by forests and near four different lakes, the area was a hunter’s and fisherman’s paradise, which is the main reason Sam and his wife, Millie, had moved to Lakeview.
A few people in town and the surrounding area knew about Doc’s special talents. Sometimes, they’d come to him for consultations that had nothing to do with their eyesight. Mostly, he lived a normal life. About the only time he became a celebrity was when he went to one of those psychic conventions.
I tried not to rely on Doc and his psychic abilities too much, unless I absolutely had to—like last summer when we had some teenage hikers lost in the local mountains. It was the first really cold night after several weeks of humid sleeping-on-top-of-the -covers weather. I knew if we didn’t find them right away, things were going to get ugly. With Doc’s help, we found them within the first hour of darkness.
There were a couple of other times when I had consulted Sam about stuff. Mostly, I tried to use my own investigative skills to solve cases. But now I had to deal with Steven Knoff and his so-called reincarnation and murder.
Things had been going so well these last 18 months, no bizarre incidences to speak of, so why couldn’t it have stayed that way?
Instead, here I was back chasing weird stuff again . . . or was it chasing me?
Chapter 3
Helen’s Bar And Grill was not your typical small-town restaurant. It had been around, as the locals say, forever and yet, it still had class. The inside was rich-looking with dark wood and fancy chandeliers. The food and service were great, and best of all, inexpensive!
When I arrived at about five after six, I found Doc already sitting in his favorite booth in the corner opposite the front door enjoying (what else?), an order of onion rings.
“Millie’s gonna be mad, you eating those when she probably has supper waiting for you,” I said to him.
“No, she’s not,” replied Sam, smiling like a big old Cheshire cat. “She knows I can eat these and a whole meal, too.”
“I believe that,” I said as I slid into the booth opposite him.
His checkered short-sleeve shirt looked as if it was about to burst its seams.
“I think you’re getting fat, Sam.”
“No, I’m not,” he replied, patting his big stomach affectionately, “just comfortable. Besides, look who’s talking.”
I patted my own growing waistline. “Naw, that’s just winter’s extra poundage not yet melted.”
“It’s already June,” he pointed out. “How much longer you think it’s going to take?”
“Okay,” I replied, feeling a bit guilty about all those half-pound burgers I’d been eating lately. “Never mind about my weight. Let’s get down to the reason I’m here.”
“Steven Knoff,” replied Sam, a little less jovial.
“Yes,” I nodded, “Steven Knoff.”
“Speaking of the Devil.”
I stared at Doc a moment, then turned my attention toward the front entrance. There was a slight pause, during which I thought Sam had been wrong. But then, sure enough, in walked Knoff, accompanied by six or seven women, mostly middle aged and older, all carrying plastic tote bags. A couple of the women also carried notebooks. Obviously, they were coming from the writer’s conference.
Every year, the local college held a week-long writer’s conference. It was a big deal with writers and publishers coming from all over the country to share their wisdom and experience with those poor souls who were still trying to get published. The people who attended the conference, as well as those who gave the lectures, often stayed at several of the local motels, with Helen’s being their most popular off-campus watering hole.
I watched as a hostess escorted Knoff and his small group to an area beyond the stairway that led to the restaurant’s second floor offices and banquet rooms.
Once they disappeared from sight, I turned back to Sam. That’s when he asked, “What did you and Knoff discuss?”
I learned long ago that Sam’s psychic abilities allowed him to get impressions about people, or see images of where they might have been, or things they might have done, but not the exact words of a conversation. So I told him what Knoff had told me about the dreams and why he thought he was here.
“He feels he’s been brought here by the cosmic gods, or whatever to settle a debt.”
Sam nodded. “He’s talking about Karmic Debt.”
“Yeah. He also believes that because of his involvement in the murder of the woman in his dreams, that at the time of his own death, his spirit immediately jumped into the body of the person who he is today. That way when he grew up, he could be brought to this location at this exact point in time so that he could confront the person with whom he believes he helped commit the original murder, and who had killed him.”
Doc nodded again. “Yes, that makes sense.”
“Well, it doesn’t to me. You’re talking about a person dying in a past life, who’s now a different person, and who may even live in a different part of the world, growing up and managing somehow to end up at a certain spot at a certain point in time so that he or she and a second individual can interact.”
“Exactly.”
I shook my head. “That whole concept blows my mind.”
“It’s not that far-fetched,” said Doc. “There have been all kinds of articles written about it lately. There’s even a book called‘ Convergence of Life Lines’ by Astrid Dominique. In it, she talks about how many peoples’ lives are destined to converge at certain points in time for certain purposes.” Doc gestured, “Look at our lives, yours and mine.”
“I know, we’ve already talked about that.”
I had to admit, my coming back here and getting a job in Lakeview and meeting Doc felt a hell of a lot more deliberate than coincidental.
“I can give you the names of some other books to read if you want to learn more about it,” he said.
“No, that’s okay,” I replied, waving him off. “I’ll take your word for it. That’s your expertise. Right now, I need you to talk to Knoff and see how truthful his story is and, if you can figure out where the body of the woman in his dreams is buried. From there we’ll see if we can discover who his accomplice was.”
“Well, I’ll give it the good old college try,” said Sam.
Chapter 4
The next morning, Billy came into my office carrying five files from storage.
“Thank God for Francine!” he exclaimed, as he handed me the folders.
I agreed with him. We were lucky to have her. She had been a college librarian before she married one of the local’s finest and came to work for Lakeview’s police department. That was 15 years ago. She and her husband had seven good years together before he was killed by a prowler. The perp was never captured, but instead of quitting, Francine stayed on.
I’ve been told that almost immediately from the moment she began working here, she started her own filing system, which made things a hell of a lot easier to find. Even files in storage were crossed-referenced in such a way you could dig up almost anything you were looking for.
After Billy handed me the folders, I said, “Okay, thanks.” Then I put the files down on my desk and turned back to the report I had been reading. Billy hesitated a moment. I could sense he was waiting for me to tell him why I needed them. When I didn’t, he reluctantly shuffled out of my office.
Once the door was closed, I put the other report aside and quickly snatched up the first of the five brown folders. It was about a women whose husband was suspected of murdering her with a bloody ax they found in his house. They never found her body. Reports two and three were about probable runaways from domestic violence. The fourth had to do with a woman who was suspected of having joined one of those hippy religious cults that were around a lot at the time. It was number five, though, that had me sitting up straight in my chair.
Mary Shelly (cute, I thought) had been a single mother with an infant. She worked, amazingly enough, at Helen’s as a waitress. She was blond, five feet five, 33 years old, 110 pounds and nice looking according to her photo, but with the kind of complexion that told you she had racked up a few of life’s miles.
As I stared at her picture, I wondered if she was the victim Knoff had seen in his dreams. When I turned the page I was positive.
There was another photo of Shelly and two acquaintances. According to the report, they were college students. One had a beard and mustache and frizzy-looking dark hair. His name was Frank Harrington. The other was clean-shaven—more your all-American type. His name was Mark Williams. Even though Williams’ hair was short and blonde, if you looked closely at his features, you’d swear he and Knoff could be brothers.
In the photo, all three were smiling and looking real chummy, with Mary Shelly sandwiched between the two males, her arms draped friendly-like around their shoulders. I wondered who had taken the picture.
According to the report, Williams and Harrington claimed the last time they had seen Mary Shelly was a couple of days before her alleged disappearance. They had just finished finals and had come to Helen’s to celebrate. As for the person who reported Mary Shelly missing? That was an elderly babysitter who began to worry when Mary didn’t show up to collect her kid.
I was just wondering what had happened to the infant when my phone rang. It was Sam.
“Okay,” he said. “I talked to Knoff last evening after he left the restaurant and he is legit.”
“He’s more than that,” I said, feeling really good that I had gotten one up on Sam. “I think I know who the woman is that was killed and who the two college students were in Knoff’s dreams.”
I heard Sam’s surprise chuckle.
“Then I guess you don’t need me anymore,” he said. He didn’t sound upset, just amused.
“Oh, yes, I do,” I told him. “I need you to help me find the body.”
“Well, then, you’ll love this. Knoff has agreed to accompany us to do just that—look for the body.”
“How did you get him to agree?”
“Wouldn’t you? Besides, he’s curious to see if this will turn out like one of his books.”
“How’s that?”
“Messy.”
That didn’t make me feel very good. “When did he say he could come with us?”
“This afternoon, after four. He said he should be finished with today’s session at the conference by then. He’ll meet us in front of the college by the bus stop.” The line suddenly went quiet. I waited for Sam to continue speaking. When he did, he said, “I get the impression there was a photograph involved in your discovery.”
“You’re right on the mark, as usual.”
I told him how I had sent Billy to check on the files in storage and what he had brought back. Then I said I’d pick him up at his office just before four.
“Make sure you drive your Explorer,” he warned. “I don’t want the town gossips starting any rumors if they see me getting into a police cruiser.”
Now, it was my turn to chuckle.
“I will,” I assured him.
Then just as I was about to hang up, I heard Doc’s voice come back over the line saying, “And don’t forget to bring shovels.”
I pressed the phone back to my ear. “Why?”
“To uncover the remains, of course.”
I was amused until Sam mentioned shovels. Until then, I hadn’t thought of this whole thing as being real. For some reason, it continued to feel sort of like a puzzle that needed to be solved, or maybe like something out of one of Knoff’s books. But it was real, which meant if and when we did find the remains, there was going to be a whole bunch of questions to deal with like, how I had known where the body was buried?
As it turned out, the newspapers took care of that for me.
Chapter 5
The following morning when I got to the station house, reporters, both newspaper and TV, were waiting for me. As soon as I saw the small group in front of the building, I knew the story had somehow leaked out.
“Damn! Damn! Damn!”
Knoff had promised he wasn’t going to say anything. I hadn’t used the police radio when I called for the forensic team, and I knew Doc wouldn’t have told anyone, so who in the hell had tipped them off?
There were six of them— a cameraman and five others. Four I assumed were from newspapers. Each held a tape recorder or note pad and a still camera. The fifth, I recognized as the main female anchor from the local cable station. Even before I got out of my car, I saw her motion to the kid holding the TV camera to start shooting.
As I stepped out of my Explorer, they started hurling questions at me.
“I’ll give you all a statement in a little bit,” I said over their voices. “Just let me get inside and take care of a few things first.”
I hurried past the tape recorders and cameras and went inside.
Billy, along with a couple of my other officers, corralled me the moment I walked in the door.
“I knew that’s why Steven Knoff was here,” Billy said, smiling like he had just figured out the punch line to a joke. He pointed toward the newspaper in his hand. “It was one of those five women in the files you had me look up, wasn’t it?”
I took the newspaper from him and scanned the story.
Past Life Murder Mystery Unearthed
When the renowned supernatural/thriller author Steven Knoff arrived at Lakeview University this past week to participate in the school’s annual writer’s conference, the last thing he expected was to be involved in a real-life murder mystery. But that is exactly what happened.
“From the moment I arrived,” says the 25-year-old author, “I found things and places were familiar to me. I even knew the location of the room at the college where I was to give my opening speech.”
This seems bizarre, because according to the Connecticut native, he has never been to this area of the country. “But,” he says, “I knew immediately I must have been here before in a past life. That’s why everything was so familiar.”
A true believer in reincarnation, Mr. Knoff’s feelings of dejá vu turned quickly to distress once the dream began. “The dream,” he says, “started the first night I was here and has repeated every night since, sometimes as much three times in one evening.”
“I see myself at a lake somewhere nearby. . . . . . . . . . . college age, but with a beard and mustache. . . . . . . . . . . argument between my companion and the woman. . . . . . . . . . try to intervene. . . . . . . . . . . . . helping him bury her body. . . . . . . . . Next, I’m falling. That’s when I wake up.”
Mr. Knoff thinks one of the reasons he is here in Lakeview, besides to attend the conference, is to confront the person in his dream whom he feels is still living somewhere nearby. “From my research into the subjects of reincarnation and Karmic debt, I believe I’m supposed to try and bring this person to justice. To do this, I knew I first had to report the murder. I asked the chairperson of the conference, Ms. Joan Pond, to whom would I report a crime if I had one to report? She suggested police chief Clifton Webb.”
Mr. Knoff notes that Lakeview’s chief of police was more than willing to listen to his story. “He even suggested I talk to one of your local physicians, a Doctor Samuel Evens.”
Doctor Evens is a local optomologist who is alleged to possess psychic powers. “With the doctor’s help,” says Mr. Knoff, “we were able to pinpoint the location of the remains of whom I feel is the woman in my dream.”
So far, neither Doctor Evens nor Chief Webb have been available for comment.
I don’t know about Sam, but I had turned off my phone once I got back to my apartment after I left the forensic team the evening before. I wanted to get at least a few hours of undisturbed sleep before all the craziness started.
The rest of the article went on to talk about how Knoff became a famous writer and more about his theories on reincarnation. Just as I finished skimming over that part, the phone rang. Francine, who looked as if she had tears in her dark eyes, said it was the mayor.
What could Francine be upset about, I wondered as I headed for my office?
I was about to close my door when I heard her moan, “It’s not fair!”
I’ll agree to that, I thought.
When I picked up the receiver, the Mayor’s gravelly voice rumbled at me, “Webb, what’s all this crap in the newspapers?”
“I didn’t tell them,” I replied, hoping to hold off any yelling on his part.
“Do you realize what kind of craziness this is going to cause around here?”
I glanced in the direction of where the small crowd waited for me outside the station house. “I’m afraid I do.”
The mayor’s voice rumbled again. “I want this taken care of right away! And for God sakes, be discreet!”
“I’m not sure I can, but I’ll try.”
“You damn well better,” he demanded, then hung up.
A moment later, the phone rang again. It was the local district attorney.
He asked if I knew the name of the victim yet and if I had any suspects.
I told him, no. “But I’m working on it,” I added.
I mean, what could I say? Because Doc is a psychic and my own hunch, we’re positive the remains are those of Mary Shelly? Not exactly official. That would have to wait until the medical examiner made her own identification. In the mean time, there was still the matter of Frank Harrington.
Even though Knoff had not known the name of his accomplice, he was sure the person, who I felt might be Harrington, was still living somewhere nearby. Yet when I tried the phone books and the computer, there was no listing for a Frank Harrington anywhere within a hundred miles. That meant if Knoff was correct, Harrington was living under a different I.D.
I should have asked Sam yesterday afternoon when we were in my Explorer if he could give me any kind of a fix on Harrington’s present identification and/or whereabouts, but we hadn’t even gone looking for Mary Shelly’s remains yet. I figured I’d wait until I saw how the search for her bones panned out. Meanwhile, yesterday morning, when I saw the names of the two college students in our missing persons file, I called the dean at the college to see if I could get copies of transcripts for a Mark Williams and Frank Harrington.
Stew Marlow was a bowling buddy, so I knew he wouldn’t give me too much grief, though he was a bit surprised because of the year I was asking about.
“This may take a while,” he said, sounding only slightly put off. “They’ll have to be faxed from where we store our records before I can send the info on to you.”
“That’s fine,” I told him, expecting not to see anything for at least a couple of days. That’s why I was so surprised when they showed up in my fax machine yesterday afternoon an hour before Knoff, Sam and I were going to start searching for the remains.
Resurrection Of A Murder - Part 1 of 2(Tom Di Roma)
Resurrection Of A Murder
Chapter 1
“I need to report a murder,” he said to me.
I almost laughed, not because I thought it was funny, but because of who he was.
“So who’s the victim?” I asked while my right fingers whirled my pen around like a baton. Old habit.
Knoff looked embarrassed. “I don’t know.”
That surprised me. He had a reputation for detail.
“Then where and when did this murder take place?”
“I know it’s somewhere near a lake close by,” he said, hesitating, “but when exactly, I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because . . . it happened a long time ago.”
“You mean someone told you about a murder that happened many years ago and now you’re reporting it?”
“No.” His brown eyes darted around my office in the station house as if he was trying to find an escape route. Finally, he said, “It happened in a past life.”
Now, I had to grin. “Are we talking reincarnation here?”
Knoff leaned forward in the chair, his eyebrows bunched together like crumpled paper. “You’ve got to understand something, I know about these things.”
“I know you do. I’ve read your books.” Actually, I’d read only two of his seven books.
“I’ve been here before,” he said with emphasis, “even though, I’ve never traveled to this part of the country.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe what was happening to him. “I knew it from the moment I drove into town the other day, I actually knew where things were. I even knew where the room was at the college where I was to lecture.”
“So you think you were a college student in this past life?”
He nodded. “Yes, and that’s when I died.”
“So you were the one who was murdered?”
He shook his head. “No, it was a woman. I was killed later.”
Oh, great, I thought. Now, we’re talking about two murders.
“Ok, Mr. Knoff, let’s go over this one step at a time. First off, why do you feel you have to report this murder?”
“Because,” he said, “I think I was involved.”
“How?”
“I was an accomplice.”
I put down my pen, leaned back in my chair and stared at the young man sitting before me. According to People Magazine, he was 25. His brown hair, which framed a face that looked almost childlike, fell straight down to his shoulders. It was hard to imagine this was the same person that had scared millions with his books.
He was wearing a tan leather vest over a flamingo pink shirt. On the vest were several peace symbols, plus Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters covering it like stickers on a grade-schooler’s notebook. His pants were loose-fitting, bell-bottom jeans, and on his feet he wore black sandals with no socks.
His entire look screamed the sixties, but it wasn’t only his clothes that had me wondering whether or not to take him seriously. This was Steven Knoff, one of the most famous supernatural/thriller writers in America, sitting in my office telling me he had been involved in a murder in a past life. This could be just research for another book, or he could be telling the truth. If so, it figures he’d find me with all the weird stuff I’ve had to deal with over the years.
“What made you decide to come forward?” I asked. Several scenarios ran through my head.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” he explained. “Actually, it’s been the same dream over and over again ever since I arrived here in Lakeview.”
“What are these dreams about?”
“I see the murder happen.”
He paused as if to see what my reaction would be.
“Go on,” I prodded.
“There are three people on the shore of a lake. One of them is the person I was in this past life. Another is a male, I’d say around college age, but with a beard and mustache, and the third is a blonde, older, maybe in her thirties. We’re laughing and drinking beer. Suddenly, there’s an argument between my companion and the woman. I see her slap him. He punches her. That’s when I try to intervene, but he knocks me aside. The next thing I know, I’m helping him bury her body.”
Knoff continued. “But that isn’t all of it. In my dream I see myself standing on the roof of a building in a city somewhere arguing with this same person. Next I’m falling.”
“So you think he also had something to do with your death . . . I mean with the death of this other person—the person in your dreams?”
He nodded. “I’m sure of it.”
I leaned back in my chair and picked up my pen from my desk and started twirling it again around my fingers. “This is an interesting story,” I said. “But why tell me?”
“Because,” he replied, “I believe the person who killed that woman and myself is still living right here in Lakeview.”
Chapter 2
We talked some more, then I told Knoff I’d look into it. “But first,” I told him, “I want you to see someone.”
“Who?” he asked suspicious.
“One of our local doctors.”
“I’m not crazy!” he hissed.
“No, he’s not that kind of doctor. He’s an eye doctor, but he also has special talents.”
“What kind?”
“He’s psychic.” Knoff’s eyebrows jumped. “If anyone can help us make the connection between what you’re seeing in your dreams, and what may have happened, he can.”
Actually, I wanted Knoff to see Sam so I could make sure that what he was telling me was the truth, and not just something his writer’s mind had dreamed up.
Knoff stood up. So did I.
I extended my right arm for a handshake. “I’ll let Doc know what’s going on and he’ll contact you.”
As we shook hands, I could see he was relieved that I had taken him seriously. Actually, I was more curious about who the perp would be if this turned out to be true.
Right after Knoff left, Billy, one of my young deputies, poked his crew cut head through the door. He was smiling as if he had just won the lottery.
“That was Steven Knoff, wasn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, boy, did you get his autograph?”
“Nope.”
Billy looked disappointed. “Why not?”
“Because he wasn’t here for that.”
“Then why did he come?”
Billy was a big fan of Knoff, but this was not something you discussed with a fan, even if he was your deputy.
“He was doing research for a book, ”I lied.
That made Billy’s eyes light up even more. “Oh, yeah! What’s it gonna be about?”
Suddenly, I felt cornered. “I don’t know!” I replied slightly annoyed. I hated being interrogated, especially when I had information I didn’t want to reveal. Billy’s expression fell.
“Don’t you have some work to do?” I said to him.
“Yeah, I do,” he mumbled, looking dejected. He turned slowly to leave.
“Wait a minute,” I called.
He faced me again.
“Tomorrow, I want you to go through our records in storage. Check the Missing Persons files. Start around 19xx. See if you can find any sheets on any women missing from this area who were never found. Start with January and go back, say, about five years.”
At first, Billy looked at me curiously, then his smile returned.
“Is that why Knoff was here—about a missing person?”
“No, but just do what I said.”
“Okay,” Billy nodded, but I could tell from his look he didn’t believe me.
He started to leave, then turned around again. “You want me to start tonight?”
“No, that’s okay,” I smiled and waved him out. “Go home to your wife. You can start tomorrow.”
Billy left and I called Doc Evens.
“Sam, I want you to meet me at Helen’s Bar and Grill tonight after you get off work. I need to talk with you about something.”
“Is this about Steven Knoff?” he asked.
“Jesus, Sam, I hate when you do that.”
I could hear him chuckle over the phone.
“My last patient is scheduled for 5:30,” he said. “I’ll meet you there about 6:15 or so.”
“Okay,” I said then hung up.
Like me, Sam had spent time in the big city before he decided he wanted the peace and quiet of country living and came to Lakeview. Unlike me, he had not been raised in the area. I met him one day shortly after I arrived back in the vicinity. That was about 18 months ago.
I was in Helen’s Bar and Grill complaining to my younger sister, Debbie, who was visiting at the time, that I couldn’t find the engraved pen one of the gals at my old precinct had given me when I retired after 20 years.
Suddenly, a deep but gentle voice behind me said, “Check under your washing machine.”
I turned around and that’s when I found myself facing what I can only describe as Santa Claus without his beard and mustache. His hair, wavy and white, was run through with faded streaks of blond, while his body continued with the Kris Kringle image—large and bear-like. He was looking at me with a grin the size of a Cadillac. I couldn’t help but smile back.
“How would you know where my pen is?” I asked.
He shrugged and with a casual wave of his chubby hand replied, “I’m psychic.”
I chuckled, but when I got back to my apartment and checked under my washing machine, sure enough, there was my pen! After that, we kept bumping into each other, usually at Helen’s during lunch time. Either I’d be going in as Sam was coming out, or vice versa. Sam loved their onion rings; I liked their half-pound burgers.
Finally, one day, we found ourselves eating there at the same time, so I asked him, “Are you really psychic?”
“Yep.” He scooped another onion ring smothered with steak sauce into his mouth then said, “It’s one of the reasons you’re here. Especially given your past history.”
My skin prickled with goose bumps. “What do you mean my past history? What do you know about me?”
“You’re here because you want to get away from your past. But you can’t. It’s going to follow you wherever you go.”
That was depressing. “You mean I have to keep dealing with all this weird crap?” I asked.
I thought coming here might finally put an end to everything, but now he was telling me it was going to continue.
He nodded. “But I am here to help you. Now tell me more about yourself.” So I did.
I told him that I had been born and raised about ten miles from here in Norwich. After high school, I went to college and took pre-law, then joined the Air Force and became an air policeman. After my four years were up, I came back to civilian life and joined the police in Chicago. That’s when all the weird stuff seemed to start. “Even as a rookie, I’d find myself in the middle of these crazy cases.”
“How so?”
I shrugged. “People who raised werewolves for pets; others who were haunted by demons, or ghosts; buildings that disappeared. Once, I even had a vampire try to recruit me.”
“How?”
“How else? A bite on the neck.”
“Obviously, he didn’t succeed.”
“No, because I had just eaten an Italian dinner with a lot of garlic bread.”
Sam nodded. He knew how garlic affected vampires.
“So you’re a full believer, then?” he asked.
“Yep, unfortunately.”
Sam nodded again.
“Later, after I made detective,” I said, “the weird stuff continued. Thank God, not all the time, but enough so that once my 20 years were up, I decided to come back here to the country and see if I could lead a normal life again. Lakeview had an opening for a chief of police, so I applied.”
“And we’re glad you did,” said Sam, as he continued to gobble onion rings like a wood shredder.
After that day, Sam and I became good friends, even though he loved to hunt and fish and I didn’t. Bowling was more my speed, though we did get together for a trip or two out to one of the local lakes. Surrounded by forests and near four different lakes, the area was a hunter’s and fisherman’s paradise, which is the main reason Sam and his wife, Millie, had moved to Lakeview.
A few people in town and the surrounding area knew about Doc’s special talents. Sometimes, they’d come to him for consultations that had nothing to do with their eyesight. Mostly, he lived a normal life. About the only time he became a celebrity was when he went to one of those psychic conventions.
I tried not to rely on Doc and his psychic abilities too much, unless I absolutely had to—like last summer when we had some teenage hikers lost in the local mountains. It was the first really cold night after several weeks of humid sleeping-on-top-of-the -covers weather. I knew if we didn’t find them right away, things were going to get ugly. With Doc’s help, we found them within the first hour of darkness.
There were a couple of other times when I had consulted Sam about stuff. Mostly, I tried to use my own investigative skills to solve cases. But now I had to deal with Steven Knoff and his so-called reincarnation and murder.
Things had been going so well these last 18 months, no bizarre incidences to speak of, so why couldn’t it have stayed that way?
Instead, here I was back chasing weird stuff again . . . or was it chasing me?
Chapter 3
Helen’s Bar And Grill was not your typical small-town restaurant. It had been around, as the locals say, forever and yet, it still had class. The inside was rich-looking with dark wood and fancy chandeliers. The food and service were great, and best of all, inexpensive!
When I arrived at about five after six, I found Doc already sitting in his favorite booth in the corner opposite the front door enjoying (what else?), an order of onion rings.
“Millie’s gonna be mad, you eating those when she probably has supper waiting for you,” I said to him.
“No, she’s not,” replied Sam, smiling like a big old Cheshire cat. “She knows I can eat these and a whole meal, too.”
“I believe that,” I said as I slid into the booth opposite him.
His checkered short-sleeve shirt looked as if it was about to burst its seams.
“I think you’re getting fat, Sam.”
“No, I’m not,” he replied, patting his big stomach affectionately, “just comfortable. Besides, look who’s talking.”
I patted my own growing waistline. “Naw, that’s just winter’s extra poundage not yet melted.”
“It’s already June,” he pointed out. “How much longer you think it’s going to take?”
“Okay,” I replied, feeling a bit guilty about all those half-pound burgers I’d been eating lately. “Never mind about my weight. Let’s get down to the reason I’m here.”
“Steven Knoff,” replied Sam, a little less jovial.
“Yes,” I nodded, “Steven Knoff.”
“Speaking of the Devil.”
I stared at Doc a moment, then turned my attention toward the front entrance. There was a slight pause, during which I thought Sam had been wrong. But then, sure enough, in walked Knoff, accompanied by six or seven women, mostly middle aged and older, all carrying plastic tote bags. A couple of the women also carried notebooks. Obviously, they were coming from the writer’s conference.
Every year, the local college held a week-long writer’s conference. It was a big deal with writers and publishers coming from all over the country to share their wisdom and experience with those poor souls who were still trying to get published. The people who attended the conference, as well as those who gave the lectures, often stayed at several of the local motels, with Helen’s being their most popular off-campus watering hole.
I watched as a hostess escorted Knoff and his small group to an area beyond the stairway that led to the restaurant’s second floor offices and banquet rooms.
Once they disappeared from sight, I turned back to Sam. That’s when he asked, “What did you and Knoff discuss?”
I learned long ago that Sam’s psychic abilities allowed him to get impressions about people, or see images of where they might have been, or things they might have done, but not the exact words of a conversation. So I told him what Knoff had told me about the dreams and why he thought he was here.
“He feels he’s been brought here by the cosmic gods, or whatever to settle a debt.”
Sam nodded. “He’s talking about Karmic Debt.”
“Yeah. He also believes that because of his involvement in the murder of the woman in his dreams, that at the time of his own death, his spirit immediately jumped into the body of the person who he is today. That way when he grew up, he could be brought to this location at this exact point in time so that he could confront the person with whom he believes he helped commit the original murder, and who had killed him.”
Doc nodded again. “Yes, that makes sense.”
“Well, it doesn’t to me. You’re talking about a person dying in a past life, who’s now a different person, and who may even live in a different part of the world, growing up and managing somehow to end up at a certain spot at a certain point in time so that he or she and a second individual can interact.”
“Exactly.”
I shook my head. “That whole concept blows my mind.”
“It’s not that far-fetched,” said Doc. “There have been all kinds of articles written about it lately. There’s even a book called‘ Convergence of Life Lines’ by Astrid Dominique. In it, she talks about how many peoples’ lives are destined to converge at certain points in time for certain purposes.” Doc gestured, “Look at our lives, yours and mine.”
“I know, we’ve already talked about that.”
I had to admit, my coming back here and getting a job in Lakeview and meeting Doc felt a hell of a lot more deliberate than coincidental.
“I can give you the names of some other books to read if you want to learn more about it,” he said.
“No, that’s okay,” I replied, waving him off. “I’ll take your word for it. That’s your expertise. Right now, I need you to talk to Knoff and see how truthful his story is and, if you can figure out where the body of the woman in his dreams is buried. From there we’ll see if we can discover who his accomplice was.”
“Well, I’ll give it the good old college try,” said Sam.
Chapter 4
The next morning, Billy came into my office carrying five files from storage.
“Thank God for Francine!” he exclaimed, as he handed me the folders.
I agreed with him. We were lucky to have her. She had been a college librarian before she married one of the local’s finest and came to work for Lakeview’s police department. That was 15 years ago. She and her husband had seven good years together before he was killed by a prowler. The perp was never captured, but instead of quitting, Francine stayed on.
I’ve been told that almost immediately from the moment she began working here, she started her own filing system, which made things a hell of a lot easier to find. Even files in storage were crossed-referenced in such a way you could dig up almost anything you were looking for.
After Billy handed me the folders, I said, “Okay, thanks.” Then I put the files down on my desk and turned back to the report I had been reading. Billy hesitated a moment. I could sense he was waiting for me to tell him why I needed them. When I didn’t, he reluctantly shuffled out of my office.
Once the door was closed, I put the other report aside and quickly snatched up the first of the five brown folders. It was about a women whose husband was suspected of murdering her with a bloody ax they found in his house. They never found her body. Reports two and three were about probable runaways from domestic violence. The fourth had to do with a woman who was suspected of having joined one of those hippy religious cults that were around a lot at the time. It was number five, though, that had me sitting up straight in my chair.
Mary Shelly (cute, I thought) had been a single mother with an infant. She worked, amazingly enough, at Helen’s as a waitress. She was blond, five feet five, 33 years old, 110 pounds and nice looking according to her photo, but with the kind of complexion that told you she had racked up a few of life’s miles.
As I stared at her picture, I wondered if she was the victim Knoff had seen in his dreams. When I turned the page I was positive.
There was another photo of Shelly and two acquaintances. According to the report, they were college students. One had a beard and mustache and frizzy-looking dark hair. His name was Frank Harrington. The other was clean-shaven—more your all-American type. His name was Mark Williams. Even though Williams’ hair was short and blonde, if you looked closely at his features, you’d swear he and Knoff could be brothers.
In the photo, all three were smiling and looking real chummy, with Mary Shelly sandwiched between the two males, her arms draped friendly-like around their shoulders. I wondered who had taken the picture.
According to the report, Williams and Harrington claimed the last time they had seen Mary Shelly was a couple of days before her alleged disappearance. They had just finished finals and had come to Helen’s to celebrate. As for the person who reported Mary Shelly missing? That was an elderly babysitter who began to worry when Mary didn’t show up to collect her kid.
I was just wondering what had happened to the infant when my phone rang. It was Sam.
“Okay,” he said. “I talked to Knoff last evening after he left the restaurant and he is legit.”
“He’s more than that,” I said, feeling really good that I had gotten one up on Sam. “I think I know who the woman is that was killed and who the two college students were in Knoff’s dreams.”
I heard Sam’s surprise chuckle.
“Then I guess you don’t need me anymore,” he said. He didn’t sound upset, just amused.
“Oh, yes, I do,” I told him. “I need you to help me find the body.”
“Well, then, you’ll love this. Knoff has agreed to accompany us to do just that—look for the body.”
“How did you get him to agree?”
“Wouldn’t you? Besides, he’s curious to see if this will turn out like one of his books.”
“How’s that?”
“Messy.”
That didn’t make me feel very good. “When did he say he could come with us?”
“This afternoon, after four. He said he should be finished with today’s session at the conference by then. He’ll meet us in front of the college by the bus stop.” The line suddenly went quiet. I waited for Sam to continue speaking. When he did, he said, “I get the impression there was a photograph involved in your discovery.”
“You’re right on the mark, as usual.”
I told him how I had sent Billy to check on the files in storage and what he had brought back. Then I said I’d pick him up at his office just before four.
“Make sure you drive your Explorer,” he warned. “I don’t want the town gossips starting any rumors if they see me getting into a police cruiser.”
Now, it was my turn to chuckle.
“I will,” I assured him.
Then just as I was about to hang up, I heard Doc’s voice come back over the line saying, “And don’t forget to bring shovels.”
I pressed the phone back to my ear. “Why?”
“To uncover the remains, of course.”
I was amused until Sam mentioned shovels. Until then, I hadn’t thought of this whole thing as being real. For some reason, it continued to feel sort of like a puzzle that needed to be solved, or maybe like something out of one of Knoff’s books. But it was real, which meant if and when we did find the remains, there was going to be a whole bunch of questions to deal with like, how I had known where the body was buried?
As it turned out, the newspapers took care of that for me.
Chapter 5
The following morning when I got to the station house, reporters, both newspaper and TV, were waiting for me. As soon as I saw the small group in front of the building, I knew the story had somehow leaked out.
“Damn! Damn! Damn!”
Knoff had promised he wasn’t going to say anything. I hadn’t used the police radio when I called for the forensic team, and I knew Doc wouldn’t have told anyone, so who in the hell had tipped them off?
There were six of them— a cameraman and five others. Four I assumed were from newspapers. Each held a tape recorder or note pad and a still camera. The fifth, I recognized as the main female anchor from the local cable station. Even before I got out of my car, I saw her motion to the kid holding the TV camera to start shooting.
As I stepped out of my Explorer, they started hurling questions at me.
“I’ll give you all a statement in a little bit,” I said over their voices. “Just let me get inside and take care of a few things first.”
I hurried past the tape recorders and cameras and went inside.
Billy, along with a couple of my other officers, corralled me the moment I walked in the door.
“I knew that’s why Steven Knoff was here,” Billy said, smiling like he had just figured out the punch line to a joke. He pointed toward the newspaper in his hand. “It was one of those five women in the files you had me look up, wasn’t it?”
I took the newspaper from him and scanned the story.
Past Life Murder Mystery Unearthed
When the renowned supernatural/thriller author Steven Knoff arrived at Lakeview University this past week to participate in the school’s annual writer’s conference, the last thing he expected was to be involved in a real-life murder mystery. But that is exactly what happened.
“From the moment I arrived,” says the 25-year-old author, “I found things and places were familiar to me. I even knew the location of the room at the college where I was to give my opening speech.”
This seems bizarre, because according to the Connecticut native, he has never been to this area of the country. “But,” he says, “I knew immediately I must have been here before in a past life. That’s why everything was so familiar.”
A true believer in reincarnation, Mr. Knoff’s feelings of dejá vu turned quickly to distress once the dream began. “The dream,” he says, “started the first night I was here and has repeated every night since, sometimes as much three times in one evening.”
“I see myself at a lake somewhere nearby. . . . . . . . . . . college age, but with a beard and mustache. . . . . . . . . . . argument between my companion and the woman. . . . . . . . . . try to intervene. . . . . . . . . . . . . helping him bury her body. . . . . . . . . Next, I’m falling. That’s when I wake up.”
Mr. Knoff thinks one of the reasons he is here in Lakeview, besides to attend the conference, is to confront the person in his dream whom he feels is still living somewhere nearby. “From my research into the subjects of reincarnation and Karmic debt, I believe I’m supposed to try and bring this person to justice. To do this, I knew I first had to report the murder. I asked the chairperson of the conference, Ms. Joan Pond, to whom would I report a crime if I had one to report? She suggested police chief Clifton Webb.”
Mr. Knoff notes that Lakeview’s chief of police was more than willing to listen to his story. “He even suggested I talk to one of your local physicians, a Doctor Samuel Evens.”
Doctor Evens is a local optomologist who is alleged to possess psychic powers. “With the doctor’s help,” says Mr. Knoff, “we were able to pinpoint the location of the remains of whom I feel is the woman in my dream.”
So far, neither Doctor Evens nor Chief Webb have been available for comment.
I don’t know about Sam, but I had turned off my phone once I got back to my apartment after I left the forensic team the evening before. I wanted to get at least a few hours of undisturbed sleep before all the craziness started.
The rest of the article went on to talk about how Knoff became a famous writer and more about his theories on reincarnation. Just as I finished skimming over that part, the phone rang. Francine, who looked as if she had tears in her dark eyes, said it was the mayor.
What could Francine be upset about, I wondered as I headed for my office?
I was about to close my door when I heard her moan, “It’s not fair!”
I’ll agree to that, I thought.
When I picked up the receiver, the Mayor’s gravelly voice rumbled at me, “Webb, what’s all this crap in the newspapers?”
“I didn’t tell them,” I replied, hoping to hold off any yelling on his part.
“Do you realize what kind of craziness this is going to cause around here?”
I glanced in the direction of where the small crowd waited for me outside the station house. “I’m afraid I do.”
The mayor’s voice rumbled again. “I want this taken care of right away! And for God sakes, be discreet!”
“I’m not sure I can, but I’ll try.”
“You damn well better,” he demanded, then hung up.
A moment later, the phone rang again. It was the local district attorney.
He asked if I knew the name of the victim yet and if I had any suspects.
I told him, no. “But I’m working on it,” I added.
I mean, what could I say? Because Doc is a psychic and my own hunch, we’re positive the remains are those of Mary Shelly? Not exactly official. That would have to wait until the medical examiner made her own identification. In the mean time, there was still the matter of Frank Harrington.
Even though Knoff had not known the name of his accomplice, he was sure the person, who I felt might be Harrington, was still living somewhere nearby. Yet when I tried the phone books and the computer, there was no listing for a Frank Harrington anywhere within a hundred miles. That meant if Knoff was correct, Harrington was living under a different I.D.
I should have asked Sam yesterday afternoon when we were in my Explorer if he could give me any kind of a fix on Harrington’s present identification and/or whereabouts, but we hadn’t even gone looking for Mary Shelly’s remains yet. I figured I’d wait until I saw how the search for her bones panned out. Meanwhile, yesterday morning, when I saw the names of the two college students in our missing persons file, I called the dean at the college to see if I could get copies of transcripts for a Mark Williams and Frank Harrington.
Stew Marlow was a bowling buddy, so I knew he wouldn’t give me too much grief, though he was a bit surprised because of the year I was asking about.
“This may take a while,” he said, sounding only slightly put off. “They’ll have to be faxed from where we store our records before I can send the info on to you.”
“That’s fine,” I told him, expecting not to see anything for at least a couple of days. That’s why I was so surprised when they showed up in my fax machine yesterday afternoon an hour before Knoff, Sam and I were going to start searching for the remains.
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