12th of Never

Chapter 47

PERRY JUDD LOOKED as elated as if he’d just won a million dollars and the title of Mr. America at the same time. He stood up from the chair in Interview 2 and grabbed my hand with both of his. His color was high. There was spittle in the corners of his mouth.

“I had a dream,” he said.

Conklin was rocking on the back legs of his chair. Morales brought coffee for three and left the room. I was pretty sure everyone in the squad was behind the one-way glass. We had a soothsayer in the house who had accurately predicted a fatal shooting.

It was a first for all of us.

I uncapped my coffee container and glanced at the corner of the ceiling to make sure that the camera was recording. Conklin said to the professor, “When did you have the dream?”

“It was with me upon awakening,” said Judd. “It was so real, I thought I truly was on a streetcar. When I say ‘real,’ I mean it was as if I were actually there.”

“So take us through the dream from the top,” I said.

“Certainly. I was on the F line, heading toward the Ferry Building. I go to the Ferry sometimes, on the weekends. But in my dream, if that’s what it was, it was a weekday. There were commuters and tourists, all of us packed in.”

“Morning?” I asked him. “Afternoon?”

“I can’t tell,” said the professor. He squinted as if he were trying to get the scene in focus. “Daylight, anyway. And I recognized the driver. She’s about your age,” he said to me. “A little slimmer than you are. Her hair was blond, but not like yours. She had coarser hair.”

“Have you ever seen her in real life?” Conklin asked.

“Yes. But I don’t know her name. In my vision, she was taking tickets. I was looking at the advertising above the windows. A Geico ad. ‘Save fifteen percent in fifteen minutes.’ I told you it was that real.”

“Go on,” I said.

“I held out my ticket to the driver. She was looking at me—and that’s when I heard a cracking sound. A shot. I saw the blood come from her forehead. I was staring at that hole in her head and her brown eyes were locked on mine. Locked.

“This was something out of this world, Inspectors. To see someone’s eyes just full of life—and then go utterly blank. I couldn’t have made this up. It has to be a premonition. It has to be foresight. I’m telling you, I’ve never had dreams like these.”

“So she was shot dead,” Conklin said. “You’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“What did the shooter look like?” I asked.

“People panicked,” said the professor. “The driver dropped and people jumped back, screaming. The streetcar was stopped and everyone rushed out onto Market.”

“Professor Judd,” I said. “Be there now. Look into the corners of your mind. What did the shooter look like? Male? Female? Old, young? You should have seen someone if you were there.”

“I never saw the person with the gun. I woke up. I was shocked to find myself in my own bed. I thought I had gone to sleep in my chair.”

“And when is this shooting supposed to happen? Today? Tomorrow? This week?”

“I don’t know,” said Professor Judd.

I stepped into the hallway with Conklin and the two of us talked about the professor’s dream. Then I went into the standing-room-only observation room and asked Inspector Paul Chi to join us outside.

Chi is not only smarter than all of us put together but he can also slip almost unseen into a crowd, observe minute details of behavior, put two and two together, and come up with forty-four.

“What do you make of Professor Judd?” I asked him.

“He’s enjoying this too much,” Chi said. “Someone should shadow him. I should go to the SFMTA, see if I can pull up the name and schedule of a thin, blond-haired conductor on the F line. And then I should be her bodyguard.”

“Do it,” I said.