James Swain - Shadow People

“How do I describe Barbara?” Walter scratched his chin. “Brilliant, headstrong, filled with passion about her work, demanding at times. She had quite a temper. I remember one time, this is going to sound funny, but once I promised to repair her watch, only I stuck the watch in a drawer, and forgot about it. You should have seen the look on her face when she found out.”

“Did she get mad?” Peter asked.

“Mad was not the word. She became furious. She started to stomp out, and then she turned around, oh, I shouldn’t be telling this, not with her missing for so long.”

“Please. It’s important you tell me everything.”

“Very well. Barbara went to the front door like she was going to leave. Then she spun around in a huff, lifted her foot, and pulled off her shoe. She threw it across the store at me!”

“Her shoe,” Peter said in shock.

“That’s right. Of course she immediately apologized. I later learned from a mutual friend that Barbara had done this before.”

“She threw a shoe at someone,” Peter said.

“Yes. It happened in the lab where she worked. Another doctor made a mistake, and ruined a week’s worth of work. Barbara pulled off a shoe and tossed it at him. She had a boiling point. When she got mad, she threw shoes at people.”

Peter thought back to Friday night, standing on his front stoop talking to Garrison, when a shoe had come flying through the bedroom window, and landed at his feet. Was this Metcalf’s not-so-subtle way of telling him that she was angry at him? If that was the case, then he’d gotten this whole thing terribly, terribly wrong.

He broke out of his thought. Liza had returned to the front of the store with two of the detectives. The look on her startled face said she’d heard every word Walter had said, and was thinking the same thoughts that he was thinking.

“Oh, my God, Peter,” she exclaimed. “Oh, my God.”

“I need to talk to Peter in private,” Garrison said to Velasco. “Do you mind?”

The FBI had jurisdiction over the NYPD, and Garrison didn’t need to be asking Velasco’s permission for anything. Velasco appreciated the gesture, however, and said, “Be my guest. Be careful. He’s a slippery one.”

“That’s one way to describe him,” Garrison said with a laugh.

Peter and Garrison walked outside. It was bitter cold and blowing hard. Peter’s limo was parked across the street by the curb.

“Want to talk in my limo?” Peter asked.

“Beats freezing to death,” Garrison replied.

They crossed and climbed into the backseat. Herbie looked up from the sports section. Peter shook his head and his driver went back to his reading. The interior was toasty and they spent a moment getting comfortable. Peter handed his guest a bottled water.

“Thanks. Now tell me what’s going on,” Garrison said.

“Up until now, I thought the shadow people were trying to lure me over to the other side to have me killed,” Peter said. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“Then what’s their purpose?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they’re trying to show me something.”

“In a good way?”

“I think so.”

“Hold on a second. You told me the other night that you were taken into the future, where Dr. Death shot you in the leg, and was just about to put a final bullet in your head when you returned to the present. That doesn’t sound very good to me.”

“Perhaps something else was going on.”

“Like what?”

Peter had journeyed to the other side many times, yet still could not fathom much of what he saw. He’d always assumed that as he grew older and more mature, the unexplained would untangle itself, and the truth would become clear. So far that hadn’t happened, leaving him to wonder if the other side would ever be fully explained. “I don’t know what the shadow people are up to, but I plan to find out. There’s a psychic in town named Selena who communicates with the shadow people on a regular basis. I need to track her down, and have a chat.”

“Think she’ll talk? You psychics are a cagey bunch.”

Garrison was right about that-psychics were as secretive with each other as they were with the general public. It came from a lifetime of secrecy, born out of growing up knowing you were different, and also knowing how that difference would be perceived. Getting Selena to talk wouldn’t be easy, but he didn’t see that he had any other choice. She was a keeper of secrets, and he needed to gain her trust.

“I’m willing to give it a shot,” Peter said.

“You and your girlfriend are free to go. I’ll deal with the cops. Call me if you learn something.”

“I’ll do that. Would you mind giving me another of your business cards? Detective Velasco kept the one I gave him.”

“What for? You’ve got my number in your cell, don’t you?”

“It’s my Get out of Jail Free card.”

Garrison pulled a dozen cards from his wallet and stuck them in Peter’s hand. “Take ’em all. Something tells me you’re going to need them.”

Garrison went back inside the watch shop. Moments later Liza came out the front door, and was soon snuggled up beside Peter. She had not enjoyed being detained by the detectives, even if just for a little while. Peter told Herbie to head to Washington Square Park, then pulled a club soda out of the minirefrigerator, twisted off the top, and handed it to Liza. She took a long swallow.

“Are psychics lives always this eventful?” she asked.

“Most psychics lead pretty normal lives,” he admitted.

“What makes you so special?”

That was a good question. Of late, there never seemed to be a dull moment. Perhaps one day he’d find out why, along with the other unanswered mysteries which consumed his life.

“I wish I knew,” he said.

The blind held a special place in most New Yorkers’ hearts. They rode the subways and walked the sidewalks with their Seeing Eye dogs without a worry in the world, their calm demeanor in sharp contrast to madness swirling around them.

Homer, the blind psychic, spent his days beneath the Washington Square Park’s famed marble arch. Built two centuries ago, the arch resembled an ancient Roman artifact, and dwarfed everything around it. Long ago, the police had run off the fortune-telling gypsies who’d held court at the arch, but out of kindness, had allowed Homer to stay.

Homer sat on a folding metal stool and told people’s fortunes. Part of his charm was that he dressed in a similar fashion to the professors at nearby New York University. Today he wore a brown cashmere sweater, a navy scarf, and brown corduroy pants. Unlike most fortune-tellers, he did not have a plate or tin cup for donations. If someone wanted to give him money, it was tucked into Homer’s breast pocket. If not, he did not complain.

Peter’s limo pulled up to the northern entrance to the park, and the partition slid back.

“Tell him to do his trick for you,” Herbie called from the front.

“What trick?” Peter asked.

“Homer can make himself invisible,” his driver said.

“Cut it out.”

“No joke. I heard a bunch of other limo drivers talking about it. One minute Homer is standing there, the next minute, poof! he’s gone. I hear it’s a real mindblower.”

“I’ll be sure to ask him.”

Peter and Liza got out and entered the park. The arch acted as a gateway to Greenwich Village, and was a favorite meeting spot. During the arch’s construction, a perfect set of human remains had been found in a spot directly below where the park’s only hanging had taken place. Rumors claimed the arch was haunted, and that the ghost of the dead man, a convicted ax murderer named Witten, ventured out at night to dance in the park’s enormous fountain. Peter had never confronted Witten, or his ax, and had assumed that it was only a matter of time before they became acquainted.