Dream Eyes

power it took to make the camera work. She was having one of her bad days that day. You know how it was with her. She was always walking a fine line between semi-crazy and real crazy. On that day she was definitely on the wrong side of the line.”
    “Why did you want the camera?” Gwen asked.
    “I just wanted a keepsake,” Nicole said. “Something that had been important to Zander. He had made it clear that the camera was his most valuable possession. When I couldn’t find it, I assumed you had stolen it or else it had gone into the river.”
    “Evelyn and I convinced ourselves that it had gone over the falls with Zander,” Gwen said. “But now that Evelyn and Louise are both dead by paranormal means, it’s looking like someone else found the camera that day, someone who has the talent to use it.”
    Nicole looked at her. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
    “It’s possible that there were two crystal-based weapons all along,” Judson said. “We don’t have all the answers yet. You said that you went to Louise’s house to ask her a question.”
    “Yes.”
    “What was it you wanted to ask her?” Judson asked.
    “I remembered what Zander had said about Louise having the ability to adjust the camera focus. He called her a witch, but he told me that very few people had her kind of talent. It occurred to me that if Gwen was using the camera, she would need to get it refocused periodically and that maybe she knew that Louise could do that kind of magic.”
    “That was very good thinking,” Gwen said. “The same thing had occurred to me. Now that Louise is dead, Judson and I are going on the theory that whoever has the camera was using Louise to tune it but then decided that she had become a liability and killed her before we could talk to her.”
    “Yes, I think that is exactly what happened,” Nicole said. “When I found her body, I was terrified. Those damn chimes. I think I’ll hear them in my nightmares for the rest of my life.”
    “The chimes were sounding when you got there?” Judson asked.
    “Yes,” Nicole said. She unfolded her arms and massaged her temples. “It was like a ghost was causing them to make that terrible music. It seemed to be getting louder and louder. I wanted to run. But then I heard your car in the driveway. I thought maybe the two of you were working together. You had murdered Evelyn and Louise and now you were going to kill me, too. The chimes made it impossible to think clearly.” Nicole paused to take a deep breath. “But last night I realized I had been wrong about you, Gwen, and probably everything else, as well.”
    “What convinced you that I wasn’t the killer?” Gwen asked.
    Nicole moved one hand in a small gesture. “You and Mr. Coppersmith saved me from the fire.”
    “That’s it?” Gwen frowned. “You decided we were the good guys just because we didn’t leave you behind when the house went up in flames?”
    “The kind of monster Zander described to me would have left me in that house.” Nicole shook her head. “How could I have been so wrong about Zander?”
    “The ability to charm those around him was part of his talent,” Gwen said. “You know that he was psychic. Well, think of him as a kind of hypnotist. He could make people believe just about anything. Evelyn and I were fooled for a while, too. So was everyone else in town.”
    “I wonder if he fooled Louise,” Nicole said quietly. “That poor crazy old witch. Do you suppose she ever realized that she was aiding and abetting a serial killer?”

Thirty-four
    W e need some deep background on Zander Taylor,” Judson said. “And we need it fast. How much did you and Evelyn find out about him when you realized that he might be the killer?”
    “Not much,” Gwen said. “All we had to go on were the forms that he filled out for Evelyn’s files when he joined the study. He claimed that his mother gave him up for adoption shortly after he was born. Evidently something terrible happened to his adoptive parents. Zander told us they were murdered in the course of a home invasion. Afterward he ended up in the foster care system. But who knows? With Zander, you could never be sure when you were getting the truth.”
    Judson thought about that while he pried off the lid of his coffee cup. Gwen’s cup of tea sat untouched in the console between the two front seats. They had picked up the coffee and tea at Wilby’s lone fast-food restaurant after leaving Nicole’s shop.