Kathleen Creighton: Memory of Murder

“Mom,” Lindsey said, “this is Detective Cameron. He’s a policeman.”

Susan Merrill gave a faint gasp and jerked her hand back. She looked at her daughter, a brief, startled glance, but Alan thought he saw hope flare in her eyes when they came back to him, just before they changed again and grew shuttered and wary.

“Well, my goodness, isn’t that nice,” she said, with a new vagueness that Alan thought didn’t quite ring true. She turned back toward the patio door, the gloves clutched in her hand fluttering with apparent agitation. “Lindsey, did you bring me pansies? You said you would bring me pansies.” Her voice was thin and high, like a child’s.

“I brought you pansies yesterday.” Lindsey threw Alan a helpless look and went after her mother. “Mom, I told-”

“Well, I used them all .” Now, the voice was clipped, impatient. “You can see-there, and there and there . And I need some more-for these pots, here, you see? I need-”

“I’ll bring you some more pansies,” Lindsey said wearily. She gently removed the gloves and trowel from her mother’s hands and laid them on a wrought-iron patio table, then guided her into a matching chair. “Mom, I told Detective Cameron about your dreams. He wants-”

Susan’s sharp bark of laughter interrupted her. “ She thinks they’re dreams,” she said angrily to Alan. “They’re not dreams . They’re memories. Memories , Detective. I still have some, you know.” She looked away, swallowing repeatedly, hands moving restlessly on the wrought-iron tabletop, and after a moment came a whispered, “I can remember.”

Alan sat in the other chair and leaned toward her, hands clasped loosely between his knees. “What do you remember, Susan?” he asked softly.

She threw him a look full of fear and distrust and shook her head.

Lindsey gave an exasperated hiss and opened her purse. She took out a small framed photograph, plunked it down on the tabletop in front of her mother, then crouched down beside her chair. “Tell him, Mom. Tell him who this is.”

A look of loathing darkened Susan’s face. With jerky, uncoordinated movements, she turned the photograph face down on the table and pushed it away from her. “I know who you think it is,” she said bitterly. And then, to Alan, “ She thinks I’m crazy. But I’m not. That man-the man in that picture-is the man who killed my husband. And me.”

“ Tried to kill you, Mama,” Lindsey said, as she settled into a more comfortable position on the patio pavers.

“Whatever.” Susan waved that off as if it were a detail of no importance. “He shot me, Detective. I saw his face, as clearly as I see yours.” Then she hesitated, looking less sure. “Except…it was dark. I think. Yes-I’m certain it was dark-nighttime. But there was light on his face. I saw that face. And then he shot me. And-” She broke off, her face contorted with fear.

“Tell me what you remember,” Alan prompted, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t jar her precarious emotional state. He put his hand over hers, quieting their restless movement. “It’s all right…you’re safe here.”

Watching the way those forbidding features seemed to soften when he spoke to her mother, Lindsey felt a peculiar fluttering sensation inside her chest. How gentle he is. So patient with her.

But, she reminded herself, he probably had plenty of practice in dealing with emotionally traumatized people. Just part of his job. A skill he’s perfected. His game face. Her eyes burned, and she tore them away from him and focused instead on a pot filled with blue and yellow pansies.

Her mother glanced down at her with tear-filled eyes, then raised them once more to Alan. “I wish I could remember more. I try, but…just that. He shot me, and then…darkness. Cold. I remember being cold, and alone, and floating .” She looked up, face alight with triumph. “Yes! I remember floating. Cold, dark, alone…and floating. I think…I must have died. Don’t you think so, Detective? Isn’t that what death feels like?”

Her eyes searched the detective’s austere features as if he must know the answer to that question, to one of humankind’s greatest mysteries, and Lindsey fought back a sob. Tears were streaming down her mother’s cheeks unchecked, as if she wasn’t even aware she was crying. Lindsey’s fingers wanted desperately to wipe the tears away. Her arms ached to gather her mother close and rock her like the child she was slowly but surely becoming. She forced herself to stay silent, to sit hunched and still at her mother’s feet.

“What do you remember about the time before you were shot?” Alan asked.

“I used to dream…” Her mother’s voice was musical, with no trace of the tears, and for a moment it seemed she must not have heard the softly spoken question. “I had dreams…nightmares…that’s what Richard said they were. ‘Just a bad dream, Susie, go back to sleep.’ That’s what he’d say, and so I did. And then…” She jerked upright. “One day, I realized it wasn’t a dream. I was remembering . Only…it was like I was remembering a different life.” Her eyes were wide and bewildered. “A life that wasn’t mine. I had a different name, a husband-oh, I can see his face so clearly. But I can’t remember his name . Or mine. I can’t remember my name. ” And now at last a sob came, shaking her slender body like a buffeting wind.

Lindsey drew her legs up, wrapped her arms around them and rested her forehead on her knees. And she heard Alan’s gentle voice ask: “Who is Jimmy?”

And there was a gasp, quickly smothered, and laughter mixed with weeping. “Oh, yes, I remember him . I had a baby-no, he was older, but a child. A little boy. That was his name-Jimmy. His hair was dark, like mine, but he had such sweet curls. And his eyes were blue, like his father’s.”

Lindsey jerked her head up at that-she couldn’t help it-but her mother’s eyes were still riveted on Alan Cameron, as she rocked herself back and forth, as if in the grip of unbearable agony.

“What happened to them, do you know?” She asked it in a voice that was half sob, half whisper. “What happened to my husband…my Jimmy? Did they die, too? It must have been so long ago…but I feel it-” she touched her chest with a doubled fist “-it hurts so much . It hurts …as if it happened yesterday.”

Alan shook his head slowly, but before he could reply, Susan reached out to him, covered his hands with hers, then gripped them tightly. “Can you find them for me? Find out what happened to them? Please…I know I’m losing my mind. In a year…maybe two…I probably won’t even care. Before that happens, I just want to know. I want to know I’m not crazy. ”

The plans had been made long before. The boat, the darkness, the weights to take the bodies down. Everything went according to plan. Like clockwork.

Excerpt from the confession of Alexi K.

FBI Files, Restricted Access,

Declassified 2010

“So…what do you think? Is she crazy?”

Lindsey’s voice, speaking aloud the words that had been playing over and over in his own mind, jerked Alan back to the here and now. “What?” he asked, surprised to find they were nearly back to where they’d parked their cars.

She repeated it, her voice hardened by what he knew was only her attempt to mask an excess of emotion.

“She seems lucid,” he said, knowing it sounded flat, uncaring-a shrug in words. But he had his own ways of masking what was going on inside.