Free Night Visions by Thomas Fahy Page A

stained with dried blood from the wound and the gash across her neck, looks agonized, tortured. The other cuts and scrapes on her body suggest a struggle. Her black slacks are ripped at the knee, and her right foot has torn through its stocking. She may have been pushed through the window—or at least thrown on top of the broken glass and splintered wood—before being hung.
    Samantha turns around, not wanting to remember Phebe this way.
    Someone else is on the landing now. Detective Snair. His body rigid. He has been watching her.
    â€œWho found her?” she asks assertively, as if the right words will convince him, convince herself, that she belongs here.
    â€œA woman who lives four floors below. At around six-thirty this morning, she stepped outside to feed her cats and noticed that the water bowl and food dish were bloody. Then she felt something drip down her cheek and looked up. It wasn’t a raindrop.”
    â€œNo one else saw anything? On an open-air fire escape in San Francisco?”
    â€œI’ve already gone over this with Mr. Bennett.”
    â€œI was just about to fill her in, Detective.” Frank, who has been standing behind her, steps forward.
    She looks directly at Snair, her hands resting on her hips. “Humor me.”
    â€œAll right.” He moves closer to Samantha and speaks with strained reserve. His breath smells of stale coffee and a freshly smoked cigarette. “We’re facing an alley behind several stores—none of which are usually open between one and four in the morning. This apartment is being earthquake-proofed, so the first three floors on this side are covered with scaffolding, tarp—all sorts of crap that makes it pretty hard to see. It rained all night, which means we don’t have much in the way of forensic evidence. And—this is my favorite part—the neighbors directly below are away for the weekend. So our killer is either really smart or really fuckin’ lucky.”
    â€œSam, can I talk to you?” Frank interrupts before she can respond. He leads her back into the apartment. “What are you doing?”
    â€œTrying to find out what happened.” She looks over his shoulder and sees Snair’s shadow against the tent.
    â€œYou said on the phone that you knew her.”
    â€œWe met two days ago at a sleep clinic.”
    â€œA sleep clinic?”
    â€œFrank, I saw this place in my dreams.”
    â€œWhat?”
    One of the officers dusting for prints looks over, and she lowers her voice. “The windowsill, the wax on the floor, a red light, her body hanging outside…all of it.”
    â€œI don’t understand. Are you telling me that you knew this was going to happen?”
    â€œNot exactly. I—” Thinking about how to explain it to Frank, to herself, she glances across the room and notices a red light glowing on the stereo.
    â€œWas that on when the police arrived this morning?”
    â€œWhat?”
    Samantha walks over to the rolltop desk, ignoring the frustration on Frank’s face.
    â€œDoes anyone know if this was playing this morning?” Neither officer in the room answers. “Who was the first person on the scene?”
    Silence.
    â€œWho was the first—”
    â€œI was.” A young woman in uniform walks out of the bedroom.
    â€œWas any music playing?”
    â€œUh, yeah.” At first she sounds surprised, then guilty. “I assumed the victim was listening to it last night. All I did was press the stop button.”
    Samantha takes a tissue out of her pocket and presses EJECT . The disc slides out.
    â€œSomeone needs to dust this for fingerprints.”
    â€œSam, what’s going on?” Frank steps over to the desk and looks down at the CD—the Goldberg Variations .
    â€œIt’s the same piece of music you found in the tape deck of Catherine’s car.”
    â€œ Pssst. Ms. Ranvali?” Everyone turns to see Officer