The Vision Read Free Page A

sirens, she had watched his approach from the window. She answered the door at once.
    “Mrs. Harrington?”
    “
Miss
Harrington. After the divorce, I took my maiden name.”
    She was a petite blonde in her early forties. She had a lush figure, but she wasn’t carrying any excess weight.
    Apparently, her primary occupation was taking good care of herself. Although she wore jeans and a T-shirt and didn’t appear to be going out for the evening, her hair looked as if it had been styled minutes ago; her false eyelashes and makeup were perfectly applied; and her nails were freshly painted the color of orange sherbet.
    “Are you alone?” Barnes asked.
    Lasciviously, she said, “Why do you ask?”
    “This is police business, Miss Harrington.”
    “What a shame.” She had a drink in one hand. He knew it wasn’t her first of the night.
    “Are you alone?” he asked again.
    “I live by myself.”
    “Is everything all right?”
    “I don’t like living by myself.”
    “That’s not what I meant. Are you all right? Is there any trouble here?”
    She looked at the revolver that he held at his side. “Should there be?”
    Exasperated with her and with having to talk above the loud swing music that boomed behind her, he said, “Maybe. We think your life’s in danger.”
    She laughed.
    “I know it sounds melodramatic, but—”
    “Who’s after me?”
    “The newspapers call him ‘The Slasher.’”
    She frowned, then instantly dropped the expression as if she had remembered that frowning caused wrinkles. “You’re kidding.”
    “We have reason to believe you’re his target tonight.”
    “What reason?”
    “A clairvoyant.”
    “A what?”
    Malone entered the living room behind her and switched off the stereo.
    She turned, surprised.
    Malone said, “We found something, Chief.”
    Barnes stepped into the house, uninvited. “Yeah?”
    “The back door was open.”
    “Did you leave it open?” Barnes asked the woman.
    “On a night like this?”
    “Was it locked?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “There’s blood on the door frame,” Malone said. “More of it on the door between the laundry room and the kitchen.”
    “But he’s gone?”
    “Must have run when he heard the sirens.”
    Sweating, aware of his too-rapid heartbeat, wondering how to fit clairvoyance and the other psychic phenomena into his previously uncomplicated view of life, Barnes followed the younger officer through the kitchen and laundry room. The woman stayed close beside him, asking questions that he didn’t bother answering.
    Hector Gonzales was waiting at the back door.
    “There’s an alleyway behind that chain-link fence,” Barnes told him. “Get back there and search for our man, two blocks in each direction.”
    The woman said, “I’m bewildered.”
    So am I, Barnes thought.
    To Malone he said, “Beat the shrubs around both sides of the house. And check out that line of bushes near the fence.”
    “Right.”
    “And both of you, keep your guns drawn.”
    * * *
    Waiting by the squad cars in front of the house, Harry Oberlander was baiting the mayor. He shook his head as if the very sight of Henderson amazed him. “What a mayor you are,” he said with heavy sarcasm. “Hiring a witch to do police work.”
    Henderson responded like a weary giant spotting yet one more tiny challenger with delusions of grandeur. “She’s not a witch.”
    “Don’t you know there’s no such thing as a witch?”
    “Like I said, Councilman, she’s not a witch.”
    “She’s a fake.”
    “A clairvoyant.”
    “Clairvoyant, shmairvoyant.”
    “So clever with language.”
    “It’s just a fancier name for a witch.”
    Dan Goldman watched Oberlander, as weary of the argument as the mayor was. There are no worse enemies, he thought, than two men who used to be best friends. He would have to separate them if Harry became dissatisfied with words and started to throw a few fast but largely ineffective punches at the mayor’s well-padded belly. It