Simon Berkley

Chapter 6: Tomas

Chapter 6

Sometimes, I feel like this body I carry isn't my own, like it was given to me some time ago and I have no choice but to feel this detachment, as if I were a seed inside an apple looking out through a tiny hole, into this very real world, but not feeling very real myself. Now I felt like I was watching everything in slow motion, everything was heavy and out of synch with time.
Alice was trying to calm Francesca, who was on her knees, her hands covering her face.
Everything was muffled by the rushing of the events, what I would imagine standing behind the current of a waterfall feels like. We got there late. His body was hanging from the ceiling by a twisted telephone cord. But it was his face. His face was twisted in agony, palms open and legs limp. His eyes had been gauged from their sockets, two gaping holes above a gaping mouth.
Not knowing what to do, I held Francesca and pulled her face to my chest, facing her away from the body. I turned to Alice, who was searching the room now, scanning everything with her ghost powers.
I wanted to call Phil, but I knew to leave the guy alone for a few days. If he wanted to be here he would be here.
Someone had heard the screams—maybe Miss Deland from across the street—and soon my driveway looked like an episode of "CSI". I had told Francesca it was safer to go home, and though she didn't know how to feel about that at first, she went ahead and left just before the police arrived. It was bad to think about what would have happened if Francesca Dillard's name got tangled in a mess like this. It would mean putting her reputation in jeopardy and I wasn't willing to let her take any fault in this. We lived different lives now, and besides, my rep was already marred by false accusations and some "unexplained" disappearances—nothing too serious.
Whoever had done it had been swift about it. Nothing natural did this, that was for sure. I promised Francesca we would get to the bottom of it. I  told her to call me as soon as she heard anything. I told the police exactly what could have been true: I told them that he was a friend and wanted to meet up with me and then he stayed a night because he wasn't feeling too well and I had found him that way.
I know, it wasn't exactly the truth, but it was the most I could do. I couldn't say it had been a supernatural thing (like "oh, by the way we got attacked by demonic chefs in a tiny bistro downtown"?), then they would have suspected something else was happening—like me being nuts. Humans weren't able to grasp the supernatural, it was in their nature to question all things and doubt everything. That is, until a giant, man-eating harpy got a hold of their throats—then anyone would believe.
The cop in charge of the scene was a burly woman of olive skin and massive features. She was almost as tall as I was and wore heavy lipstick and thick amounts of eye shadow. Her name was Officer Linda Harold. I had never seen her before, and I knew most of my friends in blue.
She scanned me and asked questions, constantly scribbling on a small leather pad that she kept flipping.
"Are you new here...Linda, is it?"
"I'm asking all the questions here, Mr. Berkley."
"Sure," I said and smiled and crossed my leg over the other.
"And you say you met up when?"
"Yesterday," I said.
I could see Alice from my peripheral standing in the corner of the room. I always had this feeling when Alice was nearby. Alice was still keeping her brunette shell.
"What time?" pressed Linda.
"One in the afternoon, maybe..."
"And you said he just killed himself?" she raised her brow.
"Yes. I was in the living room doing some spring cleaning—"
"It's the middle of September."
"Not in the Berkley home it isn't," I kidded, but she shot me a glance and I continued. I was supposed to look sad and bothered, but something inside me always flared at the sight of these blue suited monkeys.
"Mr. Berkley, his eyes were completely torn from their sockets."
"When I finished sweeping I heard some screaming and then I ran up the steps and found him there...hanging," I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, my eyes burning from forced tears. They must have helped because the woman's face softened and she ordered one of the policemen to pass me a tissue (and the award for best actor goes to...)
"I don't know why this happened," I said, my voice cracking, my palms rubbed my eyes.
"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. Berkley."
Linda flipped her pad close and glanced around the house. She shot a thumb toward the business room and curiously said, "Is any of this real?"
I pretended I didn't know what she was talking about and she continued, "I've always been a little curious about the afterlife."
Curiosity kills the cat.
"Yes. I have this," I waved my hand around the top of my head. "Power or something."
"You know," she said and inched closer to whisper, "I have a great aunt that worked with the dead. The rest of the family called her crazy, but she was legit."
"Really?"
"Oh yes. Or, at least that's what she led off right away. She would know about everything," she looked up to the ceiling and smiled as if remembering something fondly. "But then she turned out to just be a damn good liar," her face switched back to ice. "You listen to me," she said softly. My shoulders and hands went numb as the woman got too close to my personal area. She'd clearly had some bad coffee that morning. Yuck.
"Something doesn't smell right here. And Mister Berkley," she let the words slip softly from her lips. "I will find what happened here. I will do everything in my power to understand you and your movements and your life—you won't be able to go to the crapper without me knowing it! Your business is my business from now on," she said finally and stood upright, waving goodbye and smiling as if we had just had the friendliest conversation.