Bad Thoughts

Chapter 32

The Brookline detective taking Shannon’s statement looked uneasy. “Who told you he was going to kill her?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you said he told you?”

“No, I didn’t. I said I dreamed he told me.”

“And you don’t know who this guy is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Nobody told you anything ahead of time?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe you heard something? Maybe you had second thoughts what to do about it?”

Shannon just shook his head.

“How about a phone call? Sometimes I get calls in the middle of the night and I don’t even realize I’m answering it. Could it have been something like that?”

“No. There were no phone calls.”

The detective looked uncomfortable. He drummed his fingers across his desk. He didn’t like this dream stuff. Even though Shannon worked in Cambridge, even though he was suspended, he was still a fellow officer. Otherwise the questioning would have gone differently.

“So you’d say you had a, uh, premonition about the attack?” the detective asked hopefully.

Shannon decided to make things easier for his fellow officer. He told him that was what happened. A premonition. When he was first brought to the station he had agreed to a Breathalyzer test and then to giving blood and urine samples, so the detective didn’t bother asking about drug or alcohol usage. The tests would answer that better than Shannon could. After signing his statement, the detective asked Shannon if he could wait around. Someone from the FBI wanted to talk to him. Shannon pointed out that there were two FBI agents there now, but the detective just shrugged and turned to some paperwork.

While he waited, he called the hospital Elaine had been taken to but they couldn’t tell him much. Only that the damage to her had been severe and that she’d probably be in surgery most of the morning. If she survived that long.

Agent Douglas Swallow arrived after eight o’clock. He seemed uninterested as he read over Shannon’s statement.

“Do you have anything to add?” he asked.

Shannon shook his head.

“Well, then, thank you for your time.” And Agent Swallow turned away from him.

The FBI agent’s attitude bothered Shannon. There was something behind it, some card Swallow thought he had. Shannon tried to think it through, but he was too tired. Instead, he drove to Beth Israel Hospital. The front desk couldn’t give him any status about Elaine, only that she was still in surgery.

Shannon sat and waited. A heavy weariness had soaked into his joints. It tugged at him. It tried to force his eyes closed. He struggled against it. He fought like hell to stay awake. At that moment he didn’t feel up to facing Winters.