The entire way to Huntsville across America's highways Isaiah asked questions that no one-not even God- could provide an answer for, until finally Isaiah decided that God had nothing to do with the way things worked out, that while He set things in motion, He could not have known that out of the muck of the original mire from which mankind dragged itself a seriously screwed-up brain would come about alongside polyps and viruses and no-see- ums.
Then Jimmy Lee's laugh would fill Isaiah's brain; sometimes the laughter was followed by a sneer. Sometimes Jimmy Lee would tell him he was an old fool to bother God with such stupid questions. While it had been exhilarating at times to sense Jimmy Lee traveling over space and time to enter his mind, Isaiah often feared the power and clarity of his son's voice in his head. This he felt was what the young folks called intensely “cool”-that his son, sitting on death row, awaiting certain execution, had not waited until death had overtaken him to astrally project his anima or spirit to the back wall of Isaiah's head, to live inside the old man full-blown, and to direct him in these actions. His brain, encased in his skull, had always been a comfort to him, but now it registered a discomfiting feeling, and he was no longer at ease with his own mind. Not since Eunice followed her sister Emma Tilda to the grave. His beloved wife Eunice had been first to hear their son, Jimmy Lee, as clear as ringing a Wisconsin cowbell. But Jimmy Lee had not sounded his words alone. He had come in the company of his God, and they were awful and all-powerful in their combined voice and message of death.
Driving the byways of Nebraska, crossing into Kansas, heading toward Arkansas and parts south for Texas, zigzagging downward across the states, fearful now of the big interstates, Isaiah Purdy simply no longer felt at ease. His agitation came on scratching claws and unsettling words; words that spoke of a cruel revenge, something he had never thought himself capable of. Yet the evolving plan-Jimmy Lee's unfolding wrath-would not leave his brain. It came that first night to mark his mind, like a knife slicing across his forehead to make itself clear, like a firm fist pounding on a bolted door, clamoring to get in.
Strange how it had gotten into Eunice's head first, but then not so strange after all; Jimmy was always more partial to his ma than his pa. And the old man could well understand. After all, it had been his father who had had to punish the boy repeatedly, every time he broke a commandment. Jimmy Lee usually took a horse-hiding to come into line. And the favored instrument used on the boy was a harness.
Maybe it had all been for the best, his beating the boy. The boy was, after all, finally traveling in the company of his and Isaiah's Maker.
Isaiah looked up from the steering wheel and stared over it at the endless stretch of Texas highway, the center white line at the center of his hood, and once again he knew he was veering into an oncoming car. He snatched the wheel and brought it in line as the highway coalesced into a hay- strewn barnyard floor upon which lay a nude woman strapped to a dead man, to the corpse of his dead son.
Isaiah wondered what time it was. He'd been dozing on the stool set up alongside the suffering woman. 'Time for a soft bed up at the house,” he told himself and Jimmy Lee, who, in the old man's head, agreed.
“ Time for bed, old man…”
Jessica Coran had been unable to reach her friend Kim Desinor by phone, by fax, or by E-mail either at her office or home. Kim appeared to have disappeared without a word, and such behavior was unlike the woman. Jessica then learned that Kim had told Eriq Santiva that she wanted nothing more to do with the DeCampe case. She put in for time off. The sudden turnabout in Kim's behavior, her interest turning to disinterest, worried Jessica, so she asked Richard to take her to Dr. Kim Desinor's door an hour from D.C.
This necessitated a drive out to Quantico, Virginia, to Kim's apartment home, a beautiful place carved out of a hillside, now mushroomed with single and multiple duplex homes and apartments. They'd had a bit of a holdup at the gate when no one answered the buzzer, but they had convinced the security guard to let them pass. Outside Kim's door lay several untouched newspapers, and blinds and curtains were drawn against the gray, overcast day, which was just beginning to see patches of blue and sunlight
Kim didn't readily open her door when she heard Jessica's voice on the other side of the stout, white-coated wood. Richard had remained behind in the car, reading some of Judge DeCampe's case files, sifting for information, anything that might click. Alone at the door, Jessica sensed that Kim had, for whatever reason, chosen to hole up here like a wounded animal. Jessica wanted to know why. “Come on, Kim. You don't keep your friends standing on a doorstep. What's up with you, sweethearts?” It was an old joke laced with truth. Jessica had once told Kim that her heart seemed so large, open, and giving that she must have two hearts, so she'd begun to call her sweethearts.
The door opened a crack, and Jessica saw that the interior was semi dark, the drapes pulled against any Virginia sunlight that might dare attempt to enter the room. Kim's normally bright and cheery surroundings appeared to have been turned into a mortuary or mausoleum. Uncharacteristically inhospitable, Kim held Jessica at the door, where she grimly stood; Kim also tilted her head to show only her left side. “Are you going to let me in or do I have to-”
“ Go away, Jess. I'm not feeling well, and I'm not receiving visitors, and I certainly don't… feel sociable right now.”
“ Eriq said you want off the case.”
“ Wanted off, past tense. I choose my cases carefully. I have to. I don't have the luxury of psychological distance, not like you and the others have, and at the close range I am at, I can't as easily maintain a mental balance in the face of such horror, Jess. Now, if you don't mind…”
Jessica sensed there was more to it than what Kim had to say, far more. But Kim didn't wish to confide, and in an impulsive move, she pushed the door closed, but Jessica just as impulsively shoved her foot in and pushed back, knocking the door open. It stood wide open now, sunlight pouring through as the two friends glared at one another. The sunlight created a halo around Jessica where she stood in the doorway. Jessica's action had surprised Kim, revealing that the psychic's right cheek appeared badly bruised. “What the hell's happened to you, Kim?”
“ I walked into a door,” she bitterly replied. “Now, please, leave.”
“ Who the hell's struck you? That cop boyfriend of yours, Sincebaugh? I'll kick his-”
“ No one's battered me, Jess!” Kim wrapped her head and face in a large scarf, revealing an area on each wrist that looked like age spots or the spots of leprosy. “You've got no right storming in here like some savior. I want you to leave now, Jess.”
“ My God, Kim, tell me what's going on! Your hands, your face are-”
“ Despicable, I know.” Kim's eyes swelled, and tears flowed. She turned away. “You're stating the obvious, Jess.”
Jessica grabbed hold of her friend's shoulders and stared at the awful discoloration on her right cheek. She gasped when realizing what she stared at was diseased tissue-^decay, even. She helplessly shrank back, recoiling for a split second as she might with a leper. But how had Kim contracted leprosy?
Kim recoiled away as well, flailing her way to a chair, her shoulder hurting from where Jessica had touched it. “I'm decaying, Jess. Literally decaying.”
“ My God, has it been diagnosed? Who're you seeing?”
“ I'm seeing DeCampe! She's decaying, Jess; she's somewhere fucking decaying, and I can't go near her, not… not again, not ever.”
Jessica stepped closer to Kim, one hand extended, yet fearful of touching her friend. “Are you telling me that your symptoms are due to-”
“ My only hope, if it's not too late, is to rid my mind of this goddamn case, to rid my mind of DeCampe and her condition.”
“ I've never known your psychic wounds to be so… this severe, Kim. I absolutely agree. I just need to understand. Are you saying that DeCampe is in the process of decaying and that you somehow tapped into her dead body and-”
“ Yes, damnit. DeCampe is decaying, by the hour in some hellish grave.”
“ She's buried somewhere? But where? Have you got a location, Kim?”
“ She feels buried alive but decaying at the same time. I see her in a coffin.”
“ Decaying alive,” Jessica repeated.
“ I don't know… it makes no sense… but she just doesn't feel dead… rather she feels like she wants to be dead.”
“ But she's not dead yet.”
