Manhattan at Midnight
commanded a large and faithful audience primarily because of this element of surprise that magnified the ferocity of Prine’s interrogations. If he had subjected every guest to this abuse, he would have been a bore
;
but his calculated style made him as fascinating as a cobra. Those millions of people who spend most of their leisure hours in front of a television set apparently enjoyed secondhand violence more than they did any other form of entertainment. They watched the police shows to see people beaten, robbed and murdered
;
they watched Prine for those unexpected moments when he bludgeoned a guest with words that were nearly as devastating as clubs.
He had started twenty-five years earlier as a nightclub comic and impressionist, doing old jokes and mimicking famous voices in cheap lounges. He had come a long way.
The director signaled Prine. A red light shone on one camera.
Addressing his unseen audience, Prine said, “I’m talking with Mr. Graham Harris, a resident of Manhattan who calls himself a ‘clairvoyant,’ a seer of visions. Is that the proper definition of the term, Mr. Harris?”
“It’ll do,” Graham said. “Although when you put it that way, it sounds a bit religious. Which it isn’t. I don’t attribute my extrasensory perception to God—nor to any other supernatural force.”
“As you said earlier, you’re convinced that the clairvoyance is a result of a head injury you received in a rather serious accident. Subsequent to that, you began to have these visions. If that’s God’s work, His methods are even more roundabout than we might have thought.”
Graham smiled. “Precisely.”
“Now, anyone who reads the newspapers knows that you’ve been asked to assist the police in uncovering a clue to the identity of this man they call the Butcher. But what about your last case, the murder of the Havelock sisters in Boston? That was very interesting too. Tell us about that.”
Graham shifted uneasily in his chair. He still sensed trouble coming, but he couldn’t imagine what it might be or how he might avoid it. “The Havelock sisters...”
Nineteen-year-old Paula and twenty-two-year-old Paige Havelock had lived together in a cozy Boston apartment near the university where Paula was an undergraduate student and where Paige was working for her master’s degree in sociology. On the morning of last November second, Michael Shute had stopped by the apartment to take Paige to lunch. The date had been made by telephone the previous evening. Shute and the elder Havelock sister were lovers, and he had a key to the apartment. When no one responded to the bell, he decided to let himself in and wait for them. Inside, however, he discovered that they
were
at home. Paula and Paige had been awakened in the night by one or more intruders who had stripped them naked
;
pajamas and robes were strewn on the floor. The women had been tied with a heavy cord, sexually molested and finally shot to death in their own living room.
Because the proper authorities were unable to come up with a single major lead in the case, the parents of the dead girls got in touch with Graham on the tenth of November and asked for his assistance. He arrived in Boston two days later. Although the police were skeptical of his talents—a number of them were downright hostile toward him—they were anxious to placate the Havelocks, who had some political influence in the city. He was taken to the sealed apartment and permitted to examine the scene of the crime. But he got absolutely nothing from that: no emanations, no psychic visions—just a chill that slithered down his spine and coiled in his stomach. Later, under the suspicious gaze of a police property officer, he was allowed to handle the pillow that the killer had used to muffle the gunshots—and then the pajamas and the robes that had been found next to the bodies. As he caressed the blood-stiffened fabric, his paranormal talent abruptly blossomed
;
his mind was inundated with clairvoyant images like a series of choppy, frothing waves breaking on a beach.
Anthony Prine interrupted Graham. “Wait a minute. I think we need some elaboration on this point. We need to make it much clearer. Do you mean that the simple act of touching the bloodstained pajamas caused your clairvoyant visions?”
“No. It didn’t cause them. It
freed
them. The pajamas were like a key that unlocked the clairvoyant part of my mind. That’s a quality common to nearly all murder weapons and to the last garments worn by the victims.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know,” Graham said.
“You’ve never thought about it?”
“I’ve thought about it endlessly,” Graham said. “But I’ve never reached any conclusions.”
Although Prine’s voice held not even the slightest note of hostility, Graham was almost certain that the man was searching for an opening to launch one of his famous attacks.
For a moment he thought
that
might be the oncoming trouble which he had known about, in a somewhat psychic fashion, for the past quarter of an hour. Then he suddenly understood, through the powers of his sixth sense, that the trouble would happen to someone else, beyond the walls of this studio.
“When you touched the pajamas,” Prine said, “did you see the murders as if they were actually taking place in front of you at that very moment?”
“Not exactly. I saw it all take place—well, behind my eyes.”
“What do you mean by that? Are your visions sort of like daydreams?”
“In a way. But much more vivid than daydreams. Full of color and sound and texture.”
“Did you see the Havelocks’ killer in this vision?”
“Yes. Quite clearly.”
“Did you also intuit his name?”
“No,” Graham said. “But I was able to give the police a thorough description of him. He was in his early thirties, not shorter than five-ten or taller than six feet. Slightly heavy. Receding hairline. Blue eyes. A thin nose, generally sharp features. A small strawberry birth-mark on his chin.... As it turned out, that was a perfect description of the building superintendent.”
“And you’d never seen him?”
“My first glimpse of him was in that vision.”
“You’d never seen a photograph of him?”
“No.”
“Had he been a suspect before you gave the police this description?” Prine asked.
“Yes. But the murders took place in the early morning hours of his day off. He swore that he had gone to his sister’s house to spend the night, hours before the Havelock girls were killed
;
and his sister supported his story. Since she lived over eighty miles away, he seemed out of the running.”
“Was his sister lying?”
“Yes.”
“How did you prove it?”
While handling the dead girls’ clothing, Graham sensed that the killer had gone to his sister’s house a full two hours after the murder had taken place—not early the previous evening as she insisted. He also sensed that the weapon—a Smith & Wesson Terrier .32—was hidden in the sister’s house, in the bottom drawer of a china closet.
He accompanied a Boston city detective and two state troopers to the sister’s place. Arriving unannounced and uninvited, they told her they wanted to question her on some new evidence in the case. Ten seconds after he stepped into her house, while the woman was still surprised at the sight of them, Graham asked her why she had said that her brother had come to stay on the evening of November first when in fact he actually had not arrived until well after dawn on November second. Before she could answer that, before she could get her wits about her, he asked her why she was hiding the murder weapon in the bottom drawer of her china closet. Shocked by his knowledge, she withstood only half a dozen questions from the detective before she finally admitted the truth.
“Amazing,” Prine said. “And you had never seen the inside of her house before you had that vision?”
“I’d never even seen the outside of it,” Graham said.
“Why would she protect her brother when she knew he was guilty of such a horrible crime?”
“I don’t know. I can see things that have happened—and very occasionally, things that soon will happen—in places where I’ve never been. But I can’t read minds. I can’t explain human motivations.”
The program director signaled Prine: five minutes until they broke for the commercials.
Leaning toward Harris, Prine said, “Who asked you to help catch this man they’re calling the Butcher? Parents of one of the murdered women?”
“No. One of the detectives assigned to the case isn’t as skeptical as most policemen. He believes that I can do what I say I can do. He wants to give me a chance.”
“Have you gone to the scenes of the nine murders?”
“I’ve seen five of them.”
“And handled the clothes of the victims?”
“Some of them.”
Prine slid forward on his chair, leaning conspiratorially toward Harris. “What can you tell us about the Butcher?”
“Not much,” Graham Harris said, and he frowned, because that bothered him. He was having more trouble than usual on this case. “He’s a big man. Good-looking. Young. Very sure of himself and sure of the—”
“How much are you being paid?” Prine asked.
Confused by the question, Graham said, “For what?”
“For helping the police,” Prine said.
“I’m not being paid anything.”
“You’re just doing it for the good of society, then?”
“I’m doing it because I
have
to. I’m compelled—”
“How much did the Havelocks pay you?”
He realized that Prine had been leaning toward him not conspiratorially but hungrily, like a beast preparing to pounce on its prey. His hunch had been correct: that son of a bitch had chosen him for the nightly trouncing. But
why?
“Mr. Harris?”
Graham had temporarily forgotten the cameras (and the audience beyond), but now he was uncomfortably aware of them again. “The Havelocks didn’t pay me anything.”
“You’re certain of that?”
“Of course I’m certain.”
“You
are
sometimes paid for your services, aren’t you?”
“No. I earn my living by—”
“Sixteen months ago a young boy was brutally murdered in the Midwest. We’ll skip the name of the town to spare the family publicity. His mother asked for your assistance in uncovering the killer. I spoke with her yesterday. She says that she paid you slightly more than one thousand dollars—and then you failed to find the killer.”
What the hell is he trying to prove? Graham wondered. He knows I’m far from poor. He knows I don’t need to run halfway across the country to hustle a few hundred dollars. “First of all, I
did
tell them who killed the child and where they could look for the evidence that would make their case. But both the police and this woman refused to follow up on the lead that I gave them.”
“Why would they refuse?”
“Because the man I fingered for the murder is the son of a wealthy family in that town. He’s also a respected clergyman in his own right, and the stepfather of the dead boy.”
Prine’s expression was proof enough that the woman had not told him this part of it. Nevertheless, he pressed the attack. That was uncharacteristic of him. Ordinarily, he was vicious with a guest only when he knew that he had evidence enough to ruin him. He was not entirely an admirable man
;
however, he usually didn’t make mistakes. “But she did pay you the thousand dollars?”
“That was for my expenses. Airline fares, car rentals, meals and lodging while I was working on the case.”
Smiling as if he had made his point, Prine said, “Do they usually pay your expenses?”
“Naturally. I can’t be expected to travel all about, spending thousands of my own money for—”
“Did the Havelocks pay you?”
“My expenses.”
“But didn’t you just tell us a minute ago that the Havelocks didn’t pay you anything?”
Exasperated, Graham said, “They didn’t pay me. They just reimbursed me for—”
“Mr. Harris, forgive me if I seem to be accusing you of something you haven’t done. But it occurs to me that a man with your reputation for performing psychic miracles could easily take many thousands of dollars a year from the gullible. If he was unscrupulous, that is.”
“Look here—”
“When you’re on one of these investigations, do you ever pad your expenses?” Prine asked.
Graham was stunned. He slid forward on his chair, leaned toward Prine. “That’s outrageous!” He realized that Prine had settled back and crossed his legs the instant that he got a strong reaction. That was a clever maneuver that made Graham’s response seem exaggerated. He suddenly felt as if
he
were the predator. He supposed that his justifiable indignation looked like the desperate and weak self-defense of a guilty man. “You know I don’t need the money. I’m not a millionaire, but I’m well fixed. My father was a successful publisher. I received a substantial trust fund. Furthermore, I’ve got a moderately successful business of my own.”
“I know you publish two expensive magazines about mountain climbing,” Prine said. “But they do have small circulations. As for the trust fund.... I hadn’t heard about that.”
He’s lying, Graham thought. He prepares meticulously for these shows. When I walked into this studio, he knew almost as much about me as I know about myself. So why is he lying? What will he gain by slandering me? What in hell is happening here?
The woman has green eyes, clear and beautiful green eyes, but there is terror in them now, and she stares up at the blade, the shining blade, and she sucks in her breath to scream, and the blade starts its downward arc....
The images passed as suddenly as they had come, leaving him badly shaken. He knew that some clairvoyants—including the two most famous, Peter Hurkos and his fellow Dutchman Gerard Croiset—could receive, interpret and catalogue their psychic perceptions while holding an uninterrupted conversation. Only rarely could Graham manage that. Usually he was distracted by the visions. Occasionally, when they had to do with a particularly violent murder, he was so overwhelmed by them that he blanked out reality altogether. The visions were more than an intellectual experience
;
they affected him emotionally and spiritually as well. For a moment, seeing the green-eyed woman behind his eyes, he had not been fully aware of the world around him: the television audience, the studio, the cameras, Prine. He was trembling.