In Death 19 - Visions in Death

have called an MT. But visions can be tricky." "Can they?" "You know, when it comes to sarcasm, you have perfect pitch. What I'm saying is, visions often twist around reality." Interested, Eve glanced over. "For instance?" "For instance, Celina may see the killer as unusually big tall, large hands, and so on because he's powerful. Not only physically, which we can determine by the MO, but in some other way. Professionally, say, or financially. Or she sees him this way because he kills, and that's frightening to her. The boogie man's a big guy." "Okay." Eve nodded as she began the hunt for parking. "Keep going." "We know his shoe size, and that it's considerably larger than average. From this we can extrapolate that he is probably taller than average for a man. We know he's strong enough powerful enough, you could say to carry a woman, the dead weight of that woman, nearly fifty yards, and down a short but fairly steep cliff. It's cop work that's giving us the most likely picture of his physical type, not visions." "Does the cop work confirm her visions, or do her visions confirm the cop work?" "It's both, isn't it?" Peabody held her breath when Eve utilized the vertical and lateral modes to squeeze into an empty slice of space at a curb. Then let it out when it actually worked. "Civilian consultants are tools, but we have to know how to use them." Eve eyed the traffic, waiting for a break in it where she could get out of the car without being slammed into the pavement.
    "She doesn't see his face." "Could be he wears a mask. Or it could be she's too afraid to look, that she blocks it." Eve stepped onto the sidewalk. "Can she do that?" "If she's strong enough, and scared enough. And she's plenty scared. She's not a cop, Dallas," Peabody continued as they walked. "She's seeing murder, and it's not her choice the way it is ours. We don't want to see it, we don't pick up the badge. We sure as hell don't work in Homicide. I chose this because I wanted to live and work in New York, always did. I wanted to be a cop, and the kind of cop who found the big answers to the big questions. Who worked for people who'd been victimized, and against the ones who'd made them victims. You?" "Close enough." "Okay, but Celina didn't choose. She didn't decide, hey, I want to be a psychic, that'd be frosty. But she took what was laid on her and made her life work with it." "Gotta respect that." Eve gave a brief glance at the sidewalk sleeper with his grimy license hung around his neck who was happily posing for tourists.
    "Now, this comes along," Peabody added. "And I think one of her biggest fears is that this new deal isn't a one-shot.
    That she's afraid murder is going to be something she sees, even after this one's over. It's weighty." "That must've been some puke session." Peabody snorted out a laugh. "Gold metal status. But what I'm saying is she's trying, and it's costing her. She may help us, but in the end, it's our job, not hers." "Agreed." Eve stopped outside the craft shop. "Using sensitives is problematic under the best of circumstances the best being the sensitive is cop-trained and elects to be part of the investigative team. We've got neither of those things in this case. But she's linked into this, locked in. So none of us has a choice. We'll use her, ask the questions, follow up on her visions. And you hold her head when she barfs." She reached for the door, stopped. "Why New York, Peabody?" "Big, bad city. Hey, you want to be a crime fighter, you want to fight big, bad crime." "Lots of big, bad cities out there." "None of them is New York." Thoughtfully, Eve studied the traffic jammed on the streets.
    Horns blasted in arrogant defiance of city ordinances. On the corner, a glide-cart vender shouted out colorful insults to the retreating back of a customer who'd obviously annoyed him.
    "You got that right."
    Well. Well. This is a very unusual request." The store manager dithered in her tiny office where the single chair was covered in what looked to Eve to be a lot of scraps stuck together in a pattern that worshipped some demanding and possibly psychotic god of color.
    She was a fortyish woman with apple cheeks and a constant smile. She continued to use it even as she stood wringing her hands together and looking confused.
    "You do keep a customer list, Ms Chancy?" "Well, of course. Of course, we do. Most of our clientele repeat, and they appreciate being notified of specials and sales and events. Why, just last week we