Happy Thought

Chapter 4: Never All It Seems

Miles twirled the pale piece of down between his fingers watching the fluffy barbs at the end of the hollow shaft stir in the flow of air. It took only one person, one person without a conscience, to ruin something innocent forever, or as long as people remembered their history. The term 'helter-skelter' fell out of fashion after Charles Manson used it to justify killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child. Something innocent turned to horror—John Wayne Gacy equals no clowns, ever.

"It looks so normal, just a feather."

"Tinged in red, Boss." Buck set a mug of coffee down by Miles. "Tinged in red."

Buck dropped down in his chair and wrapped his fingers around his own mug. Miles dropped the feather back in the envelope labeled with the evidence filing numbers: 1-568-07. Miles rubbed his eyes, tired of seeing the case numbers. The dreaded 1—for murder—glared up at him. The 568 specified this unique group of murders, the Feather Murders. The number 07 identified the victim. Until last week, Miles' detective career hadn't seen many case numbers starting with a 1, or at least not an unsolvable 1. His murder cases so far had been easy: husbands, boyfriends, and the like.

But, more than all the numbers signifying holes punched in the lives of families, the dreams tired Miles.

After his research last night, another dream overcame him. A dark cell and Fawn whispering a name he couldn't make out. The vividness of the dream haunted him even now in the harsh light of the afternoon. He still smelled the sour human smell, the stale air, and the unwashed hair of the woman. He believed he walked around her cell awake until his alarm went off. The obnoxious beeping crashed reality around Miles' head. He now sympathized with several mental disorders—two lives in one body painfully whiplashed his soul.

Miles knew her history now—the history of Fawn Green, a poor resident of an asylum up north—but couldn't wrap his brain around what he found out last night. She lived. Lived and breathed in a padded cell hundreds of miles away. Fawn's insanity, hoisted on her by a violent gang rape, sat unsolved, cold, in a filing cabinet in some police station's basement. Miles followed the FBI's attempt to track down her only living relative, Trent Green. The man had disappeared after committing her to the asylum, disappeared too cleanly: no death certificate, no driver's license, no tickets, nothing. Little else raised a detective's red flag compared to that kind of vanishing act. The FBI agent who handled the case originally felt the same way. Miles assumed the brother either knew who raped his sister or was involved himself. Pleasant world.

But, less pleasant than such a messed up family was the idea of dreaming about a person he never met in such a vivid way.

People don't dream about people they don't know and then find out that dreamt-up person was real and alive. Next thing he knew, Miles would be hiring a psychic to solve his crimes.

Pushing up out of his chair, Miles studied the map hanging over their shared desk pulling his thoughts back to the real case taxpayers paid him to solve. He stretched his back, bumped into his chair, and sighed.

"I swear this office is smaller than ours in Newton."

"Never knew it was possible to build one smaller," Buck said.

Miles tracked the red tacks on the map, each one a murdered senior. What had the Appalachian Mountains birthed? Something foul and dark. A killer to rival Bundy's suave manner and ability to travel far out of his comfort zone. The deaths snaked north, blood red thumb tacks on the board. The Feather Killer got the old, not demented, but wise. The bright, war-hardened, life-lived, seniors opened their doors to him so he could torture and kill them...and take their brains.

"What does he do with their brains?" Buck asked.

"I don't wanna know, which means we have to find out." Miles stared at the red dots.