Chapter 13: Clues

Sunday Afternoon

The time went by as a series of flashes to Janelle. People were thinking of her, and she would arrive at one place for a few minutes, then feel drawn to another place, another person. After a stop, some for seconds, some for parts of an hour, Janelle would be moved again.

Her Mom and Dad were thinking of her -- her Mom especially was practically unhinged at Janelle's death. Her Dad tried to comfort her and remind her that they had three other children who needed her, and that he needed her as well. Thoughts in her Mom's mind were disjoint, raw, and painful, as if someone had ripped organs out of her body and left her to bleed to death. Her Dad, Hector, tried with all his heart to send his love to this woman in his arms, but felt that only part was getting through. Maui, her Mom, was numb with grief; she felt his love, but distantly.

The surroundings changed again for Janelle. Surprisingly, her twin brothers were thinking of her. Danny and Donny were sad at her death. But, being teens -- only two years younger than Janelle -- they were also thinking of sex. Well, for them, it was more like SEX. Janelle wanted to explain to them what she had discovered about sex and love, but they could not hear her voice, and she was spirited away to the next place too quickly for anything else.

The muscles of Sue's body ached. Her back, arms, and legs were strained by the extreme passion she had felt. Her vagina was tender after Cal had taken her and pleased her so thoroughly. And her anal passage was burning from the stretching and pounding it had taken. But, even with the aches and pains, Sue felt wonderful; she felt loved. The arms of the man she loved were around her, holding her, warming her, loving her. She had been given courage to try something so far outside of her normal, shy, persona that she still was in awe that little old Susie Shi had been able to even say the words, much less complete the actions. And the actions had felt so wonderful, so loving, that she was inspired to ask for even more from this man who had done wonderful, intimate, embarrassing things to her body, and had given her such pleasure that she had never imagined it was possible. Janelle felt the aches within the woman as she moved to touch the body of her former coach, but she felt the love, both given and received which overpowered everything else. That feeling -- the complete, trusting, fulfilling love stayed with Janelle, even as the room changed.

Through Mike Dahl's eyes, Janelle saw the clock. It was approaching one pm when Mike finally woke, his brain working on the problem of Janelle already. He stretched a few knots out of his muscles and thought of the preceding two days. In his logical, thorough manner, he reviewed the events -- there were now too many indicators that what happened to Janelle Delfin was not an accident. Witnesses had repeatedly and independently confirmed that there was an explosion before the train hit the car. Mike had requested a Tox screen for common sleeping drugs, knowing that Janelle would never take drugs herself, and would never, ever take drugs and then try to drive -- if she had drugs in her system, someone had gotten them into her without her knowing. He was also waiting for a response from the Mercedes Benz mechanics about some parts he had found in the car wreckage which looked strange -- some of them might be normal, but Mike would bet that some of them had been added to Janelle's car. If Cutie had not had her suspicions, wherever they originated, he probably would have passed off the event as a tragic accident. He would talk with Cutie -- she had an organized and strong mind and might pick up on something he had missed. The more clues, the more likely that the person who had planned and executed this would be caught. Mike wanted this person caught and punished.

Then his mind moved to last night, when he had returned to his house, expecting to find everyone asleep. Either Katie had been wakened by his arrival, or she had been waiting for him. Either way, she had managed to get him to relax and finally get the sleep his body needed. Mike smiled; he recognized that she had deliberately seduced his body with her own and had tired it out enough to shut down his active mind. That had allowed him to sleep. His grin threatened to split his face when he remembered her threat to find someone else to 'rescue' her that coming evening -- Mike would be sure not to miss that.

When his body would wait no longer, and he had to either go to the bathroom or explode, Mike decided that he should not spend the entire day in bed. He rose and headed to the bathroom to take care of his pressing business. It was strange for Janelle to feel herself standing in front of the toilet and have piss running out through a penis as if it was her own body; she backed out of Mike's body and watched him as he finished peeing, brushed his teeth, got dressed in jeans and a tee shirt, and then went down to breakfast. It was even late for lunch by then, but it was breakfast time for him.

Janelle saw her friend in the kitchen as Mike walked in, wearing an apron over her weekend shorts and pullover shirt, and stirring some batter. Cutie smiled at her Dad and explained, "I ate your pancakes yesterday, so I made your favorite -- fresh blueberry pancakes -- for you today. Mom said you were moving around and would be down soon, so I mixed the batter and made a fresh pot of coffee. Help yourself to a mug of coffee and I will start the pancakes as soon as the pan is hot. And, Dad, ... I love you. Most Dads would not have gone back to work after more than 24 hours on duty just because their crazy daughter said she heard something in a dream." She bent down to where he was sitting with his full mug of fresh coffee and gave him a warm kiss.

Before Cutie turned back to the stove and poured the first batch of batter into the frying pan, she asked, "So, how is the investigation going, Dad?"

Mike Dahl sighed. "There were several pieces of equipment in the car which do not seem to be standard Mercedes parts. I have to wait for Monday for the mechanics and technicians to check them out, because they don't work on weekends. I even found what looks like a tank of some kind of gas which was attached to the firewall. The crime lab will check it for fingerprints and residue tomorrow. The coroner rushed the autopsy on Janelle and found indications that some drug had been given to her, either as a gas or ingested, but, the state laboratory which does the toxicology checks is closed on the weekend. So I'm taking today off, since no one else is working. Maybe I will take your Mom out on a date tonight."

"Daddy, that would be wonderful! I'm sure Mom would love that. Don't worry about me, I'm old enough to be alone for a few hours." Cutie started thinking about inviting Will over and actually having time and her bed available to enjoy themselves.

But before her plans were complete, her Dad changed the subject. "Has your ghost given you any more clues?"

Cutie brought a plate full of pancakes over to the table and placed them in front of her Dad. The syrup and butter were already on the table, and silverware and napkins had been placed where he could use them easily. She took time to check everything out while thinking what she wanted to say. "Daddy, I know it sounds strange to talk of getting clues from a ghost, especially one in a dream. I wanted to say thank you again for trusting me and checking out what I said, even considering the weird source. But there are no more clues. I have been thinking, and if it was deliberate, even if it wasn't intended to kill her, it had to be someone outside of our town."