Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

“He did it! I know he did!”

“Calm down. Let’s go at this the right way.”

“Son of a bitch killed Doom, and then took out his wife because she knew he did it!”

“Doesn’t fit.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t fit? Of course it fits. It fits perfectly.”

“A wife can’t be made to testify against her spouse. There’s more to it.”

Murex reached out to Los Angeles police department and asked for the detective in charge of the case to contact him ASAP. A detective John Burks returned the call. After Murex explained his interest, Burks gave him what he had:

“The deceased and her husband, this Grandmaison, take the red eye and upon their arrival at LAX, the husband attempts to awaken his wife. She was nonresponsive. EMT’s are called to the plane. Wife was pronounced dead at the scene. The husband is telling a crazy story.”

“How crazy?”

“Claims he was with some secret project during the Cold War that employed mental powers to spy on the Russians. He and the wife teach this Remote Viewing. The wife, he says, was remote viewing something while the husband slept in the adjoining seat. He says this is not the first time someone expired while doing these experiments

“Is there an audio tape of the session?” Murex explained. “Usually, they record the experience.”

“Yeah, we do have a cassette. But we haven’t listened to it yet.”

“You might want to call me back after you do.”

“Why don’t I just play it this minute and we’ll both listen?”

Moments later, a hushed voice came over the line.

“2004 8547 January 31st. 2004 8547… I am in a dark room. I can see a door, but it is closed. Something is stirring above the door, where the wall joins the ceiling. Ominous. Black. A cloud. I see eyes… It’s speaking, ‘Death is coming for you!’ It’s moving toward me. Trey! Trey! Wake up! Ahhhh…”

“Sounds like she was having a nightmare,” Burks suggested.

Murex snapped, “I don’t buy it.”

“You say you’re investigating a death tied to the Grandmaisons,” Burks prompted.

“Right.” Murex gave him the investigation thusfar.

“Seems to me like these people were poking their noses into places human noses don’t belong,” Burks opined.

“Can we get a copy of that tape for voiceprint comparison?”

“Consider it done.”

“Thanks. What are you going to do with Trey Grandmaison?”

“Depends on what the ME says. But he’s being very cooperative.”

“We’d like to be informed either way.”

LAPD got back to them the next morning.

“ME says natural causes,” Burks reported. “Heart failure. Probably as a result of night terrors, also known as sleep paralysis.”

“I’m not familiar with that one,” Murex admitted.

“It’s a documented medical condition. According to the ME, when you dream at night, your body shuts down so you don’t act out your dreams by kicking and flailing around. Sometimes nightmares wake people up in the middle of it, and they find that they can’t move for a minute or two. It’s apparently a frightening experience when it happens.”

“So how does the ME know that’s what really happened?”

“Because it happened to him once. Says he was having a nightmare just like the one the woman recorded. A black cloud came at him, threatening to kill him. It roosted on his chest and he discovered he couldn’t breathe. Shock woke him up. Found he couldn’t move a muscle. But the cloud was gone. The experience scared him so much he talked to his doctor about it. The doc told him about sleep paralysis. End of story.”

“Are you satisfied with that explanation?” Murex asked.

“Not especially. But the death technically took place over some other state’s jurisdiction. ME says she was dead before she reached California airpace. So we’re dropping the matter. The ME will release the body to the husband tomorrow.”

“I’ll let you know what the voiceprint analysis says.”

“Don’t run up too big a phone bill on our account,” Burks said dryly.

The aural-spectrography report was succinct. Murex frowned as he read it.

“Not the same voice, huh?” Knuckles said.

“The contrary. Perfect match. Effie Grandmaison made Doom’s tape. But what good does that do us now? She’s dead and can’t be questioned.”

“Okay. Let’s think this through. We’re not at rope’s end. Yet. Effie Grandmaison slips home during the time her hubby is teaching that RV class down in Virgina, probably by Amtrak.”

“Right. While she’s home, she snuffs Doom. Leaves him in the cellar gray room where he’ll keep for a few days, and returns to Richmond. Later, she accompanies Grandmaison home, where he hatches an elaborate hoax to make it look like Doom died elsewhere. All seems well.”

“Until we start digging and making Mrs G nervous. Mr G decides the wife is a growing inconvenience, and somehow snuffs her during the flight to LA while crew and passengers are sound asleep.”

“This time, he concocts a more plausible version of the original perfect crime. One that will stand up in court, provided an expert in sleep paralysis is called in to testify.”

“Obviously, he recorded the tape.”

“Let’s see what the Effie tape tells us.”

The FedEx package from LAPD arrived later that afternoon. Murex and Knuckles rushed it over to the lab, twisting arms until a technician agreed to look at it over his lunch break. He came back with a fast answer: “Not the same voice at all. Guaranteed.”

Murex took Knuckles aside and said, “That leaves only one voice possible: Trey Grandmaison. After he takes out the wife, he makes the tape in the toilet of the plane. Plants it and he’s home free, thinking no one is going to see through to the truth.”

“Thinking wrong. But how do we prove otherwise? He’s off the hook and walking free under the perfect alibi: asleep beside her the entire time.”

Murex said, “I don’t buy this sleep paralysis stuff.”

“It’s ironclad, according to that ME. It happened to him, didn’t it?”

Murex went to an idle PC and and started a search. He found several websites devoted to sleep paralysis. One read: Sleep paralysis is an REM sleep parasomnia, and a symptom of narcolepsy, although it can affect about 40 per cent of the general population. It’s characterized by frighteningly vivid hypnogogic hallucinations and accompanied by acute respiratory distress. First-time sufferers often assume that they are dying.

Murex snorted, “I don’t buy this at all.”

“Says it’s a legit medical condition,” Knuckles pointed out.

“Not that. The black clouds. Almost every account here says the same thing. Subject is sleeping and has the same nightmare. A malignant black cloud comes into the bedroom, starts threatening them, and lands on their chest. Subject can’t breathe. Panic sets in. Fear of death wakes them up. They find they’re paralyzed until their body goes back to normal. Ridiculous.”

“Maybe it’s the opposite of the tunnel of light some people report during the near-death experience,” Knuckles suggested. “A trick of the brain.”

“Show me where in mythology or literature there are legends of evil black clouds and I’ll-” Murex froze at the screen.

“You what?”

“I just found the hole in Trey Grandmaison’s alibi.”

“Big?”

“Big enough for a black cloud to come in through. Let’s find out when Mrs Grandmaison is coming home.”

They called every Nashua New Hampshire funeral home until they found the one responsible for waking Effie Grandmaison.

Knuckles hung up. “The body is coming in on a 7 p.m. flight. Odds are Mr G is accompanying said body.”