When artist, Nicole Jeffords, learns that a reputable psychic who often works with the police has had a vision that the remains of a fifty-year-old male may be buried under an artist's studio in Austin, she becomes convinced that the studio in quest...
Alicia paid me another late afternoon visit. She had been to see Gharith and wanted to discuss the things he'd revealed to her. "Let's go straight out to your studio," she said as soon as she got to my house.
I'd been in my studio all day and was sick of it. Besides, I had a new canvas on the easel that I didn't particularly want to show her. But she insisted, and I went along with it. People think my studio is the best place on earth for confessions and secrets.
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"That Gharith is some guy," she said as soon as she was seated. "I mean he looks kind of, you know, threadbare, and then he comes out with all this stuff. And you have to assume it's the truth from the way it pours out of him, as if god," she blushed; clearly this wasn't a word she used often, "were whispering directly in his ear."
"What did he tell you exactly?"
She was wearing pants and a tunic top and she hugged her legs against her chest for a moment. It was 4:30, already darkening outside. I wondered who was with her little girl, Cecily Rose, born right around the time Victor disappeared, and about ten years old now.
"First, he said there were lots of angels around me. That's bullshit, I don't believe in that stuff, but there's something comforting about it all the same." She dropped her feet to the floor and reached for her wine. When she began to speak again her thick red hair had swung over part of her face, so I couldn't see her expression.
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"He said all this stuff about my parents and childhood that he couldn't possibly have known, like my father had shingles when I was thirteen, and seeing all those red blisters across his back really freaked me out, and my mother used to drive me crazy because she was a coupon queen, and going to the supermarket with her would take hours. How does he know shit like that?"
I shrugged, shaking my head. "Probably just random images that float into his brain."
"Yeah, but from where? It's so bizarre. You kind of have to rethink your view of the universe. Anyway, he described my daughter, Cecily Rose, to a tee and gave me some good insight on how to handle her. Then he started talking about the guy who, you know, raped me." She pushed her hair out of her face and picked up her wine glass with a shaking hand.
"What'd he say?" I prompted.
"That the guy's been convicted of petty crimes, not rape, that he's out there, not behind bars, that he has a double first name – Richard David, or something like that – and that he's in his mid to late fifties, and works at Walmart. He was very sure that it was Walmart because he had a clear image of the front of the store. Oh, and that," she shivered, "when he questions where this Richard David is, he can see a map of the state of Arkansas, and then a blowup of the name of the town: Harrison. That creeps me out more than anything. That he can name the town." She shivered again. "He told me some other stuff, too."
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