The Augur Sketch
Artist
Robbery Homicide Detective Matt Lelone along with the Police
Department’s sketch artist Will Darbin stood at the hospital bedside of a middle-aged
woman Elka Felice, whose badly bruised and swollen face bared witness to the
savage beating she had suffered.
“Hello Miss or is it Mrs. Felice I’m Detective Lelone and
this is Will Darbin our police department’s sketch artist. “Do you feel like you’re
able to answer a few questions about what happened and give us some information
about your attacker’s appearance?
Struggling to look at the detective and sketch artist
through swollen eyelids that were dark purple and blackened in addition to her forehead
and face she replies, “its Miss and I’ll do my best but I don’t remember much
that happened during the attack just that when I came too I was on a gurney
being placed in a paramedic unit.”
“That’s all we can ask Miss Felice and if you get too tired
or need a nurse or something to come in just let me know and I’ll stop asking
you any more questions. “By the way, when I’m done asking you questions I am
going to have you try and describe your attacker as best you can to Mr. Darbin
here so he can draw a composite of them to help us in catching this thug. “You
don’t have to be formal you can just call him Will, in fact down at the station
we refer to him as Willy the Sketcher.”
“Hello Miss Felice I’m Will Darbin but like Detective Lelone
said you can call me Will or Willy, whatever you prefer. Taking my sketch pad
from the portfolio I had brought with me and a #2 lead pencil, “do you remember
anything about the person that did this to you? “Was it a man, woman, teenager,
was the person white, black, Hispanic or Asian,” I ask while writing her name
and the case file number on the sheet? “I am going to try and develop a
composite sketch of the perpetrator that did this to you.”
“As I said, I don’t remember much at all after he hit me
several times.”
“Okay, that’s good Miss Felice, at least we have established
it was a man. “Are there any other features or characteristics about this
person that comes to mind?”
After several minutes Miss Felice had provided enough
information that allowed me to develop a very rough image of what the assailant
might look like. Holding up the sketch so Miss Felice could see it, “does this
person look like your attacker?”
Beginning to cry, “Will, I wish I could be sure. “He could
look like that. “I want him caught so he doesn’t do what he did to me to
another innocent victim.”
“Thank you Miss
Felice please get some rest, you have been very helpful and with the
information you have given me I think I have enough to compare my sketch with
mug shots but if you remember anything else, anything else at all I am leaving
my card and Detective Lelone’s on the bedside table, just give either one of us
a call.”
Gathering up the drawing and placing it in my portfolio I
again thank Miss Felice and walk out of her hospital room and into the hallway
of the Emergency Room that was in high gear with people in need of urgent care
for one reason or another. “Must be a full moon tonight” I thought while walking
out of the ER and into the parking lot to where I had parked my car. Starting
the engine and pulling out of the hospital parking lot onto the street my mind
wandered as I thought about poor Miss Felice, the hectic pace of the doctors
and nurses in the ER, getting back to the station where I could compare the
very vague and rough sketch of her attacker with mug shot pictures. I was so
preoccupied in fact that I never saw the SUV that was careening across the road
I was on after being hit by a large truck and being pushed directly into my
path. It was too late to react, there wasn’t any way I could avoid hitting the
out of control SUV.
A light shone brightly above me and all I could see were
blurred figures and the sound of voices coming from them. The pain I was now
experiencing was like no other I had ever felt. “Surely, I couldn’t be dead
because I was always led to believe that once one dies all pain and suffering
stops,” I reasoned.
“Can you tell me your name,” a masculine sounding voice
asks?
“Where am I, what happened?”
Ignoring my question the masculine voice again asks, “can
you tell me your name and address sir?”
“Will - - - Will Darbin, I live at 2395 8th
Street, Apt D here in Ashcamp. “What happened, why do I hurt all over, where am
I?”
“Welcome back Will, I’m Doctor Stillwell, you have been in a
medically induced coma for three weeks. “You are in the Intensive Care Unit at
Our Lady of Mercy Hospital and we didn’t think you were going to make it.
“What’s the last thing you can remember?”
The pain in my head seemed to intensify as I tried to
remember something, anything. “You say I’m at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital?
Unless I am totally confused and disoriented it seems to me I was at this
hospital visiting a crime victim, putting together a composite drawing of the
person that attacked her. “I remember leaving her room and ER and getting into my car, paying the
parking lot attendant and then leaving the lot and I can’t remember anything
else after that.”
“Well Will there’s a simple explanation for that. “After you
left the parking lot your car was hit head on by a large SUV that was pushed
into your path by a truck that had hit it. “It was fortunate for you that you
were literally just outside of the hospital’s ER and received lifesaving
immediate medical assistance because you would not have survived the accident
otherwise. “Sadly the woman driving the SUV was not as fortunate as you and
died from her massive injuries at the scene.”
“Was the accident caused by me?”
“From the report the paramedics and police filed the SUV
driver’s vehicle crossed the street into your lane and hit you after she was
rear-ended by a large truck
Now my head hurt even worse as I thought,” I was here at the
hospital trying to help a victim and as a result after I left the hospital I
caused another woman to become a victim- -only she did not survive and even
though it was ruled as being not my fault I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to
block it from my mind that I was at least partially responsible.”
It had been six months to the day since the accident, six
months of excruciatingly painful rehabilitation and six months of psychological
counseling when I was finally released from Our Lady of Mercy hospital’s rehab
unit. It felt good to be out and able to begin a new phase of life. Physically
I was probably about 90% of what I was before the accident. Mentally, I wasn’t
so sure as no matter what my psychological counselors through therapy had tried
to have me understand that I had no control over what had happened to the
female driver that was killed I just couldn’t totally accept it and I couldn’t
shake the ever present sense or feeling of guilt. Now and for the first time in
my life I was experiencing severe and at times almost debilitating headaches.
“I imagine in time they will subside and probably go away in the meantime I
will somehow have to deal with them,” I surmised.
“Hey, looks who’s finally back, Willy the Sketcher,” Robbery
Homicide Detective Matt Lelone calls out as I walked through the door of the
detective bureau’s office. “Glad to have you back Will, for a while there it
seemed like you might not survive let alone ever be able to be back to work so
soon.”
Waving to everyone, “it’s great to be back, I just hope I
still have a desk around here someplace Matt.”
“Relax Will would the Vatican have thrown out and replaced
Michael Angelo’s masterpiece painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with
a rendition of Dilbert? “I don’t think so and even though there have been other
sketch artist’s assigned to the department in your absence none of them could
hold a candle to you the Ashcamp PD’s very own Michael Angelo.”
Sitting down at my desk that was still as cluttered and in a
state of disarray as it was the last time I was here I begin to thumb through
some of the old files. Soon I run across a file that seemed familiar but yet
vague. It was marked Ashcamp PD File 416754, victim Felice. “Help me out here
Matt, wasn’t this the victim I was interviewing with you the night of my
accident?”
“Good to see your memory has returned Will, yes that is correct
she is the one that had the holy crap beat out of her.”
“Whatever happened to her, did they catch the guy that did
it? “Did my sketch I made help?”
“That was one of the most frustrating and sad cases I have
ever been involved with. “In answer to your question, no your sketch didn’t
help but that wasn’t because it was a poor one as it turned out it was bogus.”
“Bogus, what do you mean Matt,” I ask?
“A couple of days after the night we interviewed her we
found out that while she was a victim of crime the person that beat her up so
badly turned out to be her significant other, her husband. “We found out about
this by accident when one of the nurses overheard her talking to a visitor, a
male and assuring him she wouldn’t tell the police that he had assaulted her.”
“Why in God’s name would she tell him that? “One of the
things I now remember is her telling us that she wanted the person that
attacked her to be caught so he wouldn’t hurt another person.”
“If I could answer your question I would be some rich and
famous TV Psychologist, an Ashcamp PD’s version of doctor Phil. “I can tell you
this however, in the 20 plus years I have been on the force I have found that
time and time again it is not unusual for a battered spouse to change her mind
and not press charges. “In this case, the Felice case she wouldn’t press
charges.”
“I wonder how she is doing now Matt.”
Walking over to his desk and taking a file from a stack of files
he brings it back and hands it to me. “Here, see for yourself Will, I didn’t
want to show you this especially on your first day back to work but since you
asked I guess now is as good of a time as any.”
Taking the file from Matt the first thing I noticed were the
words HOMICIDE INVESTIGATION with the name of FELICE as the victim screaming
out at me. Opening the file jacket it revealed gruesome and horrible pictures
of a badly bruised and mutilated body of a female. “My God Matt she looks
worse, much worse than that night we interviewed her in the hospital. “Did her
husband do this to her?”
“Yeah Will he did and he’s in custody right now and his
attorney is trying to cop a plea bargain from the DA’s office for him. “If only
Miss Felice had pressed charges earlier she probably would still be alive.”
I could feel one of my migraine headaches coming on as I
thought back to the many counseling sessions I had while trying to work through
the guilt feeling issues that remained after finding out the woman who crashed
her SUV into my car had been killed. “Believe me Matt, I know how you feel. “My
shrink kept telling me the woman that died in the crash I had her death was not
my fault. “But somehow I can’t shake the feeling that “at least in part at
least it was my fault. “I bet he would be telling you the same thing and while
he may be correct nothing he can say will ever bring them back to life.”
My first day back to work seemed like it would never come to
an end but finally and thankfully it did. Fortunately we were not called out on
any new cases and no one walked into the office to report being a victim of a
crime. Walking through the door of my apartment I put my keys on the end table
at the side of the sofa and glanced at the phone to see if I had any new
messages and I felt relieved that the message light wasn’t blinking. By this
time my headache was reaching an intense point but now I felt a new sensation,
a feeling I had never experienced or felt before. It seemed as though I was
being drawn by some invisible force to my desk and the sketch pad I leave there
for the purpose of making sketches of suspects when the victim gives it over
the phone. After I make one of these kinds of sketches I scan them and then
Email the file to the person that has described it to me.
Sitting down at the desk I instinctively reached for the pad
and took a #2 black pencil out of a tall black mug I had put there to hold
pens, pencils, gum erasers and other drawing supplies. Without thinking further
and no one prompting me about what a person they were trying to describe looked
like the pencil and my hand seemed to be anatomically connected and I began to
rapidly construct an image on the pad. I had no idea who the person was or why I
felt this unavoidable urge to draw or how I should or would know what they
looked like. No matter what I did or tried I had lost control of my hand and
what was being drawn on the sheet of sketch pad paper. Finally I regained
control of my right hand and was able to put down the pencil. Picking up the
sheet of paper the face of a young Caucasian woman with a fair complexion and
light colored hair that appeared to be in her twenties stared back at me. “Who
was she and why was I somehow forced to draw an image of her?” Picking the
pencil up again and writing the date and time that I had drawn her I started to
put the pencil back into the black mug when the same powerful and strange
feeling returned and once again I was involuntarily drawing yet another figure
on a different sketch pad sheet. When the new image was completed and I was
able to put the pencil down the image of a small boy that was probably six or seven
stared back at me. The image I had drawn was so detailed that it revealed he
was missing his two upper front teeth. “What’s happening to me, am I losing my
mind, am I dreaming, having a bad nightmare? Looking at and closely examining
my right hand I muttered “are you finished with me now? “Will, you need to call
the shrink first thing tomorrow, something is drastically wrong and you must be
going crazy.” In a near state of panic I retrieved a bottle of Jack Daniel’s
Tennessee Sour Mash Whisky from a bottom drawer of my desk opened it and gulped
down what easily would have been three or four shots had I poured it into a
shot glass and measured the amount. I sat there waiting for the bourbon to take
effect and when it finally did I walked precariously into my bedroom and
collapsed on the bed not bothering to undress not even taking my shoes off and
soon fell soundly asleep or perhaps a better term is passed out.
The loud and incessant ringing of my telephone awakened me
from my Jack Daniel’s inflicted stupor. It was 5:30 A.M. and still dark
outside. Managing to pick up the phone on my third attempt before I could
answer the familiar voice of Detective Matt Lelone came booming through the
earpiece. “Will, meet me at the ER of Our Lady of Mercy as soon as you can.
“The paramedics just brought in three victims of a hit and run accident and two
of them are in pretty bad shape and might not make it but the third one is
alert and can probably give us enough information for you to make a composite
drawing of the driver of the car that hit them and then took off.”
“My head was pounding and I don’t know if it was the bourbon,
one of my migraines or perhaps the bizarre incident of uncontrollably drawing
pictures of a woman and little boy. “At least I won’t have to get dressed,” I
thought. “Okay Matt, give me about thirty minutes and I will meet you in the
ER, just be prepared for an unshaven and unkempt sketch artist that probably
still reeks of Jack Daniels.” Grabbing my sketch pad and the two sketches that
somehow had miraculously drawn themselves with the assistance of my right hand
I walked out of my apartment door and took the elevator down to the parking
garage in the building and got into my car and sped away in the direction of
Our Lady of Mercy Hospital. “Dear Lady of Mercy it seems as though you and I
have become quite familiar and I wish this familiarity would stop.”
Detective Matt Lelone was at the reception desk in the ER
talking to one of the ER doctor’s when he sees me walking through the automatic
doors. “My God Will it looks like you just came from a homeless shelter. “What
happened to you?”
“I’ll tell you later Matt if I can as I’m not sure myself.”
Matt looked at me with a puzzled expression on his face but
then seemed to ignore what I had just said. “We need to go to bed #3 and talk
to the only victim that is conscious and able to talk to us. “Get your sketch
pad and let’s go. Without pausing he calls out to a nurse, “Nurse I’m Ashcamp PD’s
Detective Matt Lelone and this is our department sketch artist Will Darbin,
“Please take us to bed three so we can speak to the patient?”
“Follow me gentlemen,” the nurse replies, as she leads us
past several beds that had white sheet like screens pulled around them serving
both as a divider and also for privacy she pulls one to the side when we
reached what would be bed three. “Here you are detective’s this is Mr. Miller he
has been stabilized and is able to talk to you.” Before she left she raised the
head portion of the bed so he could see us. As she walked by she gave me a
disapproving look.
“She must have noticed the smell of bourbon that is probably
still on my person,” I thought. Lying on the hospital bed in front of us was a
man who was probably 35-40 years old and had both arms heavily bandaged and his
left leg in a cast and in traction. “Go ahead Matt, you can start asking him
questions and when you are finished I will see if I can get enough information
from him so I can draw a composite sketch of the hit and run driver.
“What about my wife and son, are they here in the hospital
also, nurse, nurse can you tell me?”
“The nurse has left Mr. Miller; I’m Detective Lelone from
the Ashcamp Police Department and this is Will Darbin our department’s sketch
artist. “We need to ask you some questions. “Do you feel up to answering them?”
Becoming agitated he replies, “look at me, how you think I
feel? “Can you tell me anything about my wife and son, are they alive, where
are they?”
“They are both here in the ER and are being taken care of
Mr. Miller. “I’ll check with the nurse and find out their condition and let you
know before we leave, in fact I’ll go ask a doctor or nurse now so why don’t you
describe whatever you can recall to Mr. Darbin so he can develop a sketch of
the hit and run driver,” Matt answers.
Taking out my sketch pad “please go ahead Mr. Miller tell me
anything you can remember no matter how insignificant you think it might be.
“We want to catch this person and make sure he or she is held accountable for
what they did to your wife, son and you.” For the next several minutes with the
help of Mr. Miller’s recall a definite description of the hit and run driver
was being formed. Satisfied, I stopped when Matt returned.
“Mr. Miller, I talked to the ER doctors that have been
tending to your wife and son and they told me they were both alive but in very
critical condition and if they survive the next 24 hours they should make a
full recovery. “Would you like for me to call anyone for you, your minister,
priest or rabbi, how about any of your family members?”
The pain medication
the nurse had just injected Mr. Miller with was beginning to take effect and he
was becoming very relaxed and drowsy. Before he drifted off to sleep he softly
mumbled, “thank you detective it isn’t necessary for you to call anyone as I
believe the hospital staff has already made those calls.”
As we were walking towards the ER’s exit one of the doctor’s
that Matt had been talking to called out to us, “Detective’s, Mrs. Miller has
regained consciousness and is calling out for her husband and son maybe she
will be of some help to you, just don’t push her too hard. She’s in bed ten and
her little boy is next to her in bed nine.
Walking through the white curtained partition that divided
bed’s nine and ten I gasped, dropped the sketch pad strewing its contents onto
the floor and grabbed onto the metal partition nearly pulling it down.
“Will what’s wrong, are you okay?”
Partially regaining my composure I bent down picked up the
sketch pad and the sketches that had been strewn on the floor and handed the
sketch I had been compelled to draw just last night by someone or something an
unknown enity that took control of my drawing hand. “I don’t know, here you
tell me Matt,” as I handed him the sketch of the woman I had uncontrollably
drawn.
Now it was Matt’s turn to be shocked. “My God Will this is
Mrs. Miller, when did you have time to draw this sketch we’ve only been here
for about an hour.”
Ignoring his question I said, “Matt we’ve got to see the
Miller’s son.”
“He’s in the partition next to this one Will.”
“Matt, if I am right this is what he will look like,” I
blurted out handing him the picture of the little boy I had been compelled to
uncontrollably draw last night as well.
“Will, what’s going on you are beginning to frighten the
bejesus out of me.”
Pulling the curtained partition aside and walking from Mrs.
Miller’s bed to bed number nine the little boy’s face couldn’t be seen as he
was laying on his side with his back to them. Walking around the bed so they
could see what the boy looked like Matt says in an astonished voice, “Holy
Mother of God Will it’s him, the little boy in your sketch, and he is even
missing his two upper front teeth!”
“I don’t know what is going on Matt and why now all of a
sudden I seem to be possessed by some mystic or psychic ability to see victims
before they become one but as in this case the revelation of them were revealed
too close to the time they actually did have something happen to them. “I
couldn’t prevent it as whatever mysterious powers I have or are now inside e of
me doesn’t tell me who, where they are or when something bad will happen to
them. “This power isn’t a blessing Matt it’s a curse!”
“What are you going to do Will, you need some help but I
don’t have the slightest idea who you can talk to that will even believe you
let alone understand why or what is happening to you.”
“When we are finished here I am going up to the 6th
floor and talk to the counselor I have been seeing during the rehab portion of
my treatments since my accident. “I hope they will understand and perhaps come
up with some reasonable explanations I don’t want them to think I am one of
those nut jobs that claims to have been abducted by space aliens and taken
aboard their UFO’s for experimentation. “Considering what is happening to me
right now maybe they aren’t nut jobs and something really did happen to them,
who am I to judge?”
“Well considering the events of today maybe we both should
see your shrink Will. “If you need someone to verify what has just happened
here at the ER let me know, I’m here for you buddy. “Here take these sketches
of the woman and the little boy you might need them when you talk to your
counselor.”
“Thanks Matt, I’m sure I will.”
Peering at me over the rims of his
glasses Dr. Werner Inghart the chief of neurology at of the Our Lady of Mercy Hospital looks at me
intently as he put down the note pad he had been writing on during our session and
then he placed the eraser end of the pencil he had been using to his lips. His
face was expressionless. “Mr. Darbin, while your experiences you have told me
about concerning the sketches you say you somehow were made to draw of victims
in an auto accident are indeed fascinating as a trained psychologist they don’t
seem plausible. “Please don’t take that statement as one of not believing you I
just feel there is some other explanation. “Considering the horrific accident
you were in less than a year ago I think the answer or explanation if you will
may well be due to some lingering after effects of the life threatening
injuries you sustained. “I want to schedule more sessions with you and see if
we can get at the root cause of what has suddenly started to happen to you. “In
the meantime I am going to change the dosage in your medication you have been
taking maybe something as simple as this will correct the problem.”
“Believe me Doc, it happened and
even my detective partner will verify it. “There must be some explanation and I
have to find out and soon. “If I don’t I feel that soon our sessions will have
to take place in the state mental hospital inside my padded cell.”
“Please Mr. Darbin you have my
assurances we will find an answer or explanation to the phenomena you have
recently started to experience and it won’t be from a “padded cell” as you have
just described.”
Several weeks had gone by, weeks I am relieved to say where
no new forced sketch drawing events occurred. “Maybe the change in the dosage
of the medication I had been taking did indeed correct the problem we’ll see as
this evening I have another session with Dr. Inghart and he said he wanted me
to bring my sketch pad with me, he said something about art therapy,” I
thought.
Doctor Inghart greeted me as I walked through the door of
his office, “good evening Mr. Darbin, I
see you brought your sketch pad as I requested, good. “Rather than sitting on
the sofa I would like for you to sit at the table in that chair,” he pointed.
“Fine Doc, do you want me to keep my sketch pad with me?”
“Please do, this evening we are going to engage in some art
therapy and you are going to be in a state of hypnosis and I am going to give
you some commands concerning recent crimes and victims and ask that you sketch
a likeness of the perpetrator as well as the victim. “Given the fact you are
aware of these cases your subconscious mind should take over allowing you to
draw them. “After that exercise I am going to give you hypnotic suggestions
concerning crimes, victims and criminals that have been committed but you have
never heard about them.”
“Trick questions or maybe I should say trick suggestions,
huh doc? “Trying to prove or disprove the images I drew of the woman and her
little boy I somehow knew about.”
“Well Mr. Darbin, even though you put it that way what I
really am attempting to accomplish is two-fold, first, as you have just
mentioned if somehow in your subconscious mind you did know about them; and the
second an effort to help you overcome whatever it is you are experiencing.”
“Doc, whether you believe me or not I know they happened and
somehow I drew both victims in advance and without any prior knowledge of them
or the incident. “If I wasn’t so desperate to find out why this happened to me
at this point in time I think we are both wasting our time.”
“Please Mr. Darbin, while I understand your frustration and
skepticism trust me at least for this session tonight and then a follow up
visit in a week after I have had a chance to review the results of tonight.”
“Okay, fair enough doc, let’s do it,” I agreed. Minutes
later I was in the hypnotic trance of Dr. Werner Inghart.
“Mr. Darbin, can you hear me?”
“Yes doc I can.”
“What are my name and your name?”
“You are Dr. Inghart and I am Will- - Will Darbin.
“What do you do for a
living, Mr. Darbin?”
“I work for the Ashcamp Police Department.”
“What is your job at the department?”
“I am employed as one of their sketch artist’s.”
This kind of dialogue continued for several minutes as Dr.
Inghart asked several more questions in order to gain complete confidence
between him and the patient.
“Okay Mr. Darbin I am going to ask you draw the suspect you
drew in the Elka Felice case.”
“The image I drew and will now draw is not an accurate
portrayal of her attacker doctor.”
“What do you mean, please explain Mr. Darbin?”
Being in the hypnotic trance I was in I didn’t answer I
simply drew from memory a replica of the image I had drawn the night I
interviewed her at the hospital, the same night of my nearly fatal accident,
tore it from my sketch pad and handed it to him. “Here you are doc.”
Taking the sketch from me Dr. Inghart thanked me and then
asked, “why isn’t the sketch you just gave me an accurate portrayal of her
attacker?”
“Doc, that’s because she lied to me. “Her true attacker was
her spouse or domestic partner and she didn’t want to implicate or identify him
so he wouldn’t be arrested which was a mistake because not long after that he
killed her.”
“Putting the sketch that I had just drawn Dr. Inghart
described a suspect that had committed a robbery and assault that happened last
week in another city that had gained widespread media attention but didn’t say
where it had taken place. The suspect had been apprehended and his face had
been broadcast on several news reports. “Will I want you to draw me a sketch of
the suspect that committed this crime. “If you can in fact draw the suspect
that will give me a clue that perhaps you somehow did know about the woman and
young boy that were involved in the accident, go ahead pick up your pencil and
begin drawing.”
Hearing and understanding his command I picked up the pencil
but could not begin to draw anything and just sat there for several minutes,
“nothing comes to mind Dr. Inghart,” I tell him.
“Okay Mr. Darbin, I am going to give you a command and when
I tap my pen on my desk you will be awakened from your hypnotic trance, I think
we’re finished for the day.”
I awoke when he tapped his pen on his desk. “How did it go
Doc?”
Holding up the sketch I had drawn of the Felice assault
suspect he says, “you had incredibly accurate recall concerning this crime but
when I asked you about a more recent crime that had gained widespread media
attention and coverage in Chicago you couldn’t draw that suspect even though he
had been shown on television many times.”
“Doc, doesn’t that prove I am right about what happened to
me and the sketches I made of the injured woman and her son, I couldn’t have
made them up.”
“Mr. Darbin, although I still have doubts about that
incident nevertheless based upon this session tonight I’m not so sure about
them. “I’m going to consult some colleagues of mine that have studied in the
field of parapsychology and see if they can explain it. “On your way out,
please make an appointment with my assistant for next week, same day and time.”
As I got up from the chair at the table where I had been
seated I felt the urge and sensation that had come over me the night before I
had been called in by Detective Matt Lelone to meet him at Our Lady of Mercy
hospital when I gave him the sketches that I had drawn and that inexplicably
turned out to be the images of the injured woman and her little boy. “Doc, I’m
getting that strange and unexplainable feeling again,” and then sat down and
uncontrollably began drawing sketch after sketch. After nearly an hour passed I
handed Dr. Inghart 20 different sketches.
“Mr. Darbin, I don’t understand or maybe recognize is a
better word,” as he looked at the twenty pages of sketches I had just handed to
him. Thumbing from sketch to sketch it was easily recognizable that there
appeared to be at least 50 or more bodies that had been thrown about on the
ground adjacent to what appeared to be a railroad track a part of which was
bending upward away from the ground. Each sketch revealed more bodies burned
and twisted passenger train cars.
“Doc, I wasn’t faking it, whatever possessed me to start
drawing these just took over and I lost all control of my drawing hand just
like I did the night I drew the woman and her little boy. “You just witnessed
what happened to me now you’ve got to believe me.”
“Mr. Darbin, I have to admit something bizarre just occurred
and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would never have believed you. “I’m
going to hold onto these until our next session and we will review them at that
time.”
A horrible feeling of pending doom or tragedy was starting
to take over, “Doc, we have to do something, warn someone but I don’t know
who.”
“You’re absolutely correct Mr. Darbin but who do we warn and
more importantly what can we do. “If we call the authorities and warn them of
an impending catastrophe they will either think we are insane a term I don’t
like to throw around unless it is absolutely beyond a reasonable doubt, or, he
paused, “they will think we are a part of some terrorist plot if in fact such
an event does actually happen. “I feel our hands are tied, all we can hope and
if you are a religious person is pray the horrific events depicted in your
sketches do not come to fruition.”
“Now you’re beginning to understand how I feel Doc, we’re
damned if we do and damned if we don’t do anything. “I’ll see you next week.”
A relative uneventful week had taken place and I felt pretty
good that there hadn’t been any catastrophic train accidents anywhere in the
U.S. as I drove to Dr. Inghart’s office for our scheduled appointment. The
traffic was moderate and I had the news station tuned in on my car radio. “We
interrupt the regularly scheduled news hour to bring you a news bulletin. “We
take you now to our news bureau in Mumbai, India for a late breaking report of
a horrific train wreck that took place a little more than an hour ago in the Indian
state of Punjabi. “Early reports say there may be as many as 100 dead and
another 400 persons injured as bodies have been scattered on and around the
tracks and the train’s passenger cars have been twisted like pretzels, many of
them burning.”
“Oh no, this can’t be, when I was obsessed to draw those
twenty or so sketches last week neither the Doc or I could recognize the
train’s passenger cars and this explains why, the accident wasn’t going to happen
here in America it was going to happen in India.” Arriving at Our Lady of Mercy
Hospital I hurriedly park my car and then walk rapidly, almost in a jog from my
car and through the hospital’s main entrance.
Impatiently I wait for the elevator to return to the main floor from the
fifth. Once the doors of the elevator open I rush inside and forcefully push
number 6 which was the floor that Dr. Inghart’s office was on. Getting off the
elevator I sprint down the hallway to his office and the door is already open.
The Doc is with another person, a shrink I speculate. “Doc, I blurt out, “did
you hear about the train wreck in India?”
“Yes I did Mr. Darbin, and please calm down. “I have taken
the liberty to call a colleague of mine a Dr. Shultzgard, from Munich. “Dr.
Shultzgard is an expert in the field of parapsychology and I feel based upon
what you have experienced with the woman and young boy and what has just
happened I think it has transcended far beyond my training and experiences as a
psychologist.”
“See Doc, I told you I wasn’t imagining or making up these
events.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Darbin but like I have just said in all my
years and training as a psychologist I have never experienced such things.
“Now, given this latest incident of the horrific train wreck in India it has
been proven beyond any doubt that you are blessed with a psychic ability
something I have never seen or studied before.”
“I don’t know Doc, it seems more like a curse than a
blessing to me.”
“Good evening Herr Darbin, I am Dr. Shultzgard, please, go
over to the sofa and be seated. “I’m most anxious to talk with you. “Dr.
Inghart, would you please give me the sketches that Herr Darbin has drawn?”
“Do you want the sketches of the woman and little boy as
well as the train wreck?”
“All of them please Dr.Inghart. “Now Herr Darbin, in reviewing
your case file you never had any incidents such as these before- - let’s see,”
he says while thumbing through the papers in his file. “Ah yes, before the
accident that nearly killed you. “It looks like that happened close to a year
ago, is that correct?”
“Yes Doc, that’s right,” I replied.
Then comparing the sketches he had made of the woman and
little boy as well as the ones of the bodies and wreckage of the train Dr.
Shultzgard says as if to himself, “incredible, just incredible, in the forty
plus years I have been studying parapsychology this is the first time I have
ever been able to visually verify such activity.”
“Dr. Shultzgard, what do you think or maybe I should say do
you have any idea what is causing Mr. Darbin to have these experiences,” Dr.
Inghart asks?
“I don’t know if we will ever know the exact reasons Werner
but it is my educated guess that the head trauma Mr. Darbin suffered in his
accident has something to do with them. “In parapsychological study it is the
study of phenomena suggesting that the assumption of a strict separation
between subjective and objective may be wrong. Human experiences such as what
Herr Darbin has been experiencing suggests that some phenomena occasionally
fall between the cracks and are not purely subjective or purely objective.
“”From a scientific perspective, such phenomena are called anomalous because they are difficult to explain within current
scientific models. “Now, as a result of Herr Darbin’s experiences I believe we at last have
such a scientific model. “The anomalies I am talking about fall into three
general categories, ESP,PK or Psychokinesis or direct mental interactions with
physical objects animate or inanimate as well as Bio-PK which is direct mental
interactions with living systems. “Also from his experiences he seems to
possibly fall within the category or ability of having automatic writing or an
entity which guides the hand of a living person. “Herr Darbin, how would you
like to go back to Munich with me so we can study your incredible talent under
a controlled laboratory environment?”
“I don’t know Doc, I’ve already missed a lot of work because
of my accident and I’m not sure the Ashcamp PD will give me more time off but I
would like to at least learn how to control what happens to me. “I’m not sure
how long I can keep my sanity if I don’t do something.”
“Excellent Herr Darbin, I will speak to your employer and
make all the arrangements and don’t worry about money as you will be highly
compensated by my university and the German Government. “Meet me here at Dr.
Inghart’s office three days from now and we will make final preparations for
our trip to Germany.”
The events of the day had been exhausting and on my way home
I stopped at the Ashcamp Police Department and told my good friend Detective
Matt Lelone about my latest sketching incidents and that I was going to take a
leave of absence and go to Germany with Dr. Shultzgard. “Can you believe it
Matt I’m going to Germany and become an experimental lab rat?”
It’s about time Willy the Sketch Artist did something
valuable and noticeable around here and when you become famous and in all the
medical journals I hope you will still have time for lowly buddies here at
Ashcamp PD.”
I was exhausted when I finally walked through the door of my
apartment but I was too wound up to go directly to bed so I poured myself a
very tall glass of Jack Daniels good old Tennessee Sour Mash sat down and took
a long and healthy drink. As I began to relax and started to get drowsy the
entity I think is what Dr. Shultzgard had called it once more took control of
my right drawing hand and I started sketching only this time I did it more feverishly
than I had ever done since I started experiencing the blessing as the good
doctor had called it. “Sorry, Doc, it’s more like a curse not a blessing.” By
now the whisky and the pain medication was really kicking in and I laid my head
down on the desk and passed out not bothering to look at the sketch I had just
drawn.
It was Friday the day I was supposed to meet Dr. Shultzgard
but that meeting would not take place.
“Will, you here,” Detective Matt Lelone calls out after he
had been let into my apartment by the apartment manager? Walking over to my
desk where I was still seated, slumped over he could see the empty whisky
glass, the spilled bottle of Jack Daniels, the bottle of pain medication and a
sketch that was directly under my face he could see that the augur sketch
artist had drawn his last sketch a picture perfect likeness of himself his
latest and what was his last victim.
THE END
By Ralph L Myers
