Page 14 of A Touch of Murder
"Oh, yeah. I guess that would help." He pulled the evidence bag from his pocket and opened it. "Want it on the table or should I dump it in your hand?"
"You can drop it in my hand, but first, do you want this recorded?" Adam pulled a recording device from his pocket. "I can download and send you a copy once we finish. Just remember, this won't stand up in court."
"I'll worry about court later. I need to catch the guy first. Sure, let's record it." Barret should have thought about that on his own. He was slacking and letting his confusion over Adam's so-called talent keep him from thinking logically like a cop should.
Adam pressed a button. "Reading for Barret Whitestone on a bracelet belonging to Trina Winters." He gave the date and the time. "Ready." He pulled off one of the long-sleeved gloves he wore and held out his hand.
Barret noted that today the gloves were pale green. The other day, they'd been blue. He wondered how many pairs Adam had. He tipped the evidence bag upside down and let the beaded bracelet fall onto Adam's hand.
Adam's eyes closed and he started to talk. "Angela Wilson is wearing the bracelet, doing dishes, tissues, crying. I think thisis more recent. After Trina's death. Sense of grief. Let it play out and see if it goes back farther. I can't control what I get."
Barret was worried about that. When he'd gone to talk to the Wilsons, he'd seen the bracelet on the mother's wrist. It wasn't a fancy bracelet. Just one with brown beads, maybe stones, tiger's eye perhaps, that stretched over the hand and didn't have any clasp.
"Laughter, I think that's Trina. Smell of popcorn. More laughing. She plays with the bracelet a lot, rolling it up and down her arm. I can feel fear, darkness, hard to see. One scream, then can't breathe. Struggling, wrestling, trying to get away. Boot, work boot, not cowboy. Black, scuffed, thick sole. The word pro on the boot, red letters. Smell cigarettes, bad breath, popcorn again. He's pulling on her arm, drawing the bracelet over her hand. His hands are gloved, black gloves, more like driving gloves than for weather, maybe like a batting glove, no, not sure can't tell. I'll research that. Hands are large, bigger than mine."
Barret looked at Adam's hands. They were average sized for a man. Did that mean the attacker was bigger than Adam?
"Hard to breathe, something over her mouth, I think. A lot of fear, crying. But she's fighting. She fights hard, kicking, punching. He has her almost out of the car. The bracelet falls to the floor of the car. She's gone." Adam stayed silent, his eyes still closed.
Barret didn't know whether he should say something or if Adam was still doing his thing. He'd gotten a lot of new information this time. If only he trusted it.
"Someone's coming back, leaning into the car. It's a man. Beard, light brown, gray throughout it. Baseball cap. Mariners. It's old, dirty, brim torn and threadbare. Thick lips, almost look swollen. Eyes are too narrow to see color, smell cigarettes, body odor. He's heavy, overweight. Breathing hard. Different. No gloves, tattoo on arm, green color, can't tell…" Adam shookhis head. "He's going. Bracelet is on the floor, quiet. Can't hear anything, see anything. It's black." Adam slowly opened his eyes and took in a gasping breath. Then another.
"You okay?" Barret was worried.
"Will be. I felt like I had someone's hand over my mouth through all of that. It was hard to breathe. Couldn't get air." He quickly pulled his glove back on, twisted the cap off a water bottle and downed it all, then reached for the next bottle. "Sorry, give me a second."
"Can I do anything?" Barret wondered if he should call Jacey in. Adam was still trying to catch his breath and was paler than he had been when they'd started.
"More water." Adam gestured to the fridge. "Two please. And candy, top drawer, grab me one more."
Barret hurried across the room and opened the small fridge, finding it filled with water bottles, then he opened the top drawer of the desk and was stunned when he found it full of Hershey Bars. There had to be at least fifty of them in there. He grabbed one and hurried back over to the table. He twisted the cap off one bottle and handed it over as Adam shoved the last of his first candy bar into his mouth.
"Thanks. Sorry, I pushed harder on that one than I usually do. Stayed with it longer than I did before, but it paid off. I hadn't seen the man last time." Adam tore open the second candy bar.
"Did you see him well enough to sit down with a sketch artist?" Barret asked.
Adam nodded as he chewed, then swallowed. "I think so. I also want to research the glove I saw. I think there were two men. One grabbed her from the car, then another searched the car after. I can't confirm that, but there were gloves on the first guy I saw, then not on the other. Both about the same size."
"This is good. It gives us a lot more than we had." Barret stared at the notes he'd made. He'd only gotten maybe half of what Adam had said. He was glad they recorded it. "Could you feel anything from the men? Would you feel it if they were someone you knew?"
"Maybe, not always. I don't think I knew them. I didn't feel anything from them. No fear, no adrenaline rush, no anger. Emotions were all from Trina. The fear was extreme and not being able to breathe. I got the feeling she was almost blacking out at some points."
"No way to make out the tattoo?" Barret asked.
"No, nothing more than the color. I can look up shades of green online and tell you the color. Arm was thick, twice the size of mine. Hairy, but just light brown hair like the beard."
"Full beard or short?" Barret asked.
"Full. Covered his whole face. Cheeks looked red but I can't be sure. That could be the weird haze I'm looking through when I do these sometimes."
"Red?"
"Yeah, like some alcoholics." Adam touched his cheeks. "I wish I could have seen their vehicle or a license plate. Anything that might have helped."
"You gave us a ton to help. I know we can't use any of this in court, but if it leads us to her killer, or killers, I don't care what I have to do to back up our investigation in court. All I want is to be able to look the Wilsons in the eye and tell them we caught their daughter's killer." Barret ran his hand through his hair. "Sorry, I just get so mad that someone would go after one of the teens in the area. It makes me fear for all the others out there."
"I get it." Adam was now sipping water instead of gulping it and his color was back to normal. Again, Barret thought about how attractive the man was with his solid build, deep green eyes, and dark brown hair. "Let me recover a bit, then I'll look atgloves online and find the one like I saw. The color of the tattoo as well. I'll email it along with the audio over to you if you just leave me an email."
