Her Eyes

Chapter 28: POWERLESS

It was early in the morning when Alex received a call about a blonde woman from floating in the tidal flats. He rolled his eyes hoping to God it wasn't Norma. He drove down to the bay and climbed under the caution tape. The sight of the body didn't faze him, though he pitied the poor girl. Water dripped down her hair as they lifted the body out of the water and placed her in a body bag, zipping her up. "Anybody have any idea who she is?" the sheriff asked, squinting from the light of the sunrise. The officer shook his head and followed the others back to the truck. Alex knew who he needed to call—the only person he could think to call was her. He climbed in his SUV and dialed the Bates' house, hoping Norman wouldn't answer.

"Hello?" It was Norma.

He paused for a moment unsure how to ask. "Hey, it's Alex. I hate to ask, but there's a dead girl…they're taking her down to the morgue right now. I was wondering if you could come and see if it's that Annika girl."

He waited for her to respond. He could hear her unsteady breathing. "Uh, yeah…of course." There was worry in her voice. It plagued her.

He was like an awkward teenager trying to speak to her on the phone. "The morgue is near the junkyard on Baxter Street. I'll meet you there."

"Yeah, yeah." She paused. He could tell she was thinking about something. "How'd you have my number?" She laughed lightly.

He hesitated. He couldn't tell her that he had her number memorized. "You call the station a lot," he laughed. It was the truth. He'd seen her number on multiple paperwork at the station…not to mention all the messages she'd left him in the past few years they'd known each other.

She laughed along with him. "I'm on my way." He hung up the phone and headed over to the morgue, greeting the pathologist when he arrived.

"I haven't had the chance to look at the body yet," the man said, putting on his gloves.

"That's all right. We're just here to hopefully identify this woman." He glanced over at the table where the woman laid. They had already placed a blanket over top of her, concealing every bit of her except her feet. Alex turned at the sound of the door opening. It was Norma. "Thanks for getting down here so fast," he uttered, walking over to her.

"Of course," she stated. She winced; the smell of the room had just hit her.

He looked at her painfully. "I'm sorry I have to ask you to do this." She smiled politely. "They found her floating in the tidal flats." He felt the need to warn her before she got a look.

"Okay." She placed a finger under her nose and approached the table with Alex beside her. "Oh I think it's her. I recognize the toenail polish." Alex glanced down at the girl's feet, taking a deep breath before uncovering the body. He watched as Norma moved passed him to get a better view. She leaned down over the face of the girl, nearly touching nose to nose. He stared at her in amusement. She was some woman all right. "It's not her," she muttered, keeping her gaze on the girl.

"Are you sure?" he asked in disbelief…she had stared at the girl for a while.

"I'm sure." She stood upright. "Yeah," she sighed a bit, glancing back down at the girl.

"All right," he mumbled. He turned to the pathologist, who stood in the back of the room. "Thanks for everything." He turned and led Norma out of the room, stopping in the hall.

"What?" She was expecting an interrogation.

He looked down the hall to make sure they were alone. "I, uh, thought maybe you should have my number." He reached into his jacket pocket and handed her a slip of paper. "Just in case…something happens."

She smiled playfully at him. "Does this mean I should give you my number? Just in case?"

He tried not to break his sheriff demeanor, though inside he was going crazy. He shrugged nervously as she reached into her purse for a pen and paper. His heart began to beat as she wrote the numbers down. She smiled at him, handing over the paper. He glanced down at it briefly before stuffing it in his pocket. "Well I better go. I'm on duty."

She rolled her eyes, still smiling, as they walked out off the building, each getting in their separate cars and driving off.

Alex drove back home and threw on his suit—he had a meeting with Bob Paris at the Arcanum Club. When he got to the club he ordered a drink and waited for Bob. After about a half hour, Bob finally showed up.

"Alex," he greeted. He took the seat across from him. "This must be business, because you rarely come here just to drink with me."

He could have strangled him. "Wasn't our meeting a half an hour ago?"

He stared back at the sheriff, an arrogant smile forming on his face as he laughed. "Was it? It's probably my office's fault." Everything was always someone else's fault with Bob. Alex shot him a look, which he ignored. "If you're on the clock." He motioned to the door.

He tried to study him. He was the same douchebag he always was. He bullied Alex when they were kids. Alex sensitive boy, and Bob took advantage of that. "A dead girl was found floating in the tidal flats earlier this morning." He was accusing him of murder.

"You need a better opening line…and a better tie," he mocked. He always resorted to belittling when he was in trouble. He knew how Alex was—that under that hard exterior he was still that meek little third grader. "But I wasn't gonna go there. So about this girl…was she a girl like a kid?"

Alex fought back the urge to knock his lights out. "No, she was a woman girl. Early twenties, blonde, lovely. I was wondering if you were missing anyone from your little party."

"I really wouldn't know, there were a lot of woman girls there," he laughed. "You have fun?"

"I had a couple of drinks. I talked to the people I needed to talk to," he mumbled. He knew what he was getting at and he wasn't having any of it.

"No extracurriculars?" A smile crawled across his face.

The sheriff scrunched his face. "Little public for me." Alex was a private guy—he had always been.

Bob recoiled in his seat. "I feel the heavy weight of your judgment, Alex."

"Bob, I'm not here to pass judgment on your sex parties," he huffed.

Bob leaned forward. "What's worse? Sex parties or letting the town erupt into a drug war which leads to the DEA showing up and burning down the town's source of commerce?" He glared at him smugly. "I don't think you wanna have a vote on that one. Oh wait, we are having a vote—the election for the next sheriff." He always tried to intimidate Alex. "You're so far from being morally superior to me, it's ridiculous."

Alex leaned in. "If you think I'm gonna walk away from this crying because of what went down these last few months—that you're somehow entitled to a free pass," he whispered. He knew he killed that girl. "You're wrong."

Bob squinted at him, retreating a bit. "Enjoy your drink. It's on the house." Alex watched as he got up from his seat and fled into the back room. He hated the man…there was nobody worse than Bob Paris.

Later on in the day, Alex decided he needed more information about the girl. He drove over to the Bates' house and rang the bell.

After a few moments, Norma peered at him through the window. He waited as she opened the door. "Alex," she smiled. "I'm making dinner, come on in." She pushed the door back a little for him to walk in.

"It's not really a social call," he stated once he was inside. "I need to talk to Norman about the girl in the morgue."

As soon as Norman's name left his lips, she panicked. "Why? He didn't know her." She hated talking about Norman with him—he knew that.

But he needed information and Bob wasn't a good enough source. "In case there's any connection between her and Annika Johnson, Norma." He sighed, already dreading the rant he was about to receive.

"But why would there be a connection? What could Norman possibly know? It's not like her and this Annika girl were friends." Her eyes were filled with anxiety and helplessness.

He stared back at her gravely. "You and I…we didn't just meet, Norma." He hated that Keith Summers' death was the reason they met…but it was fate. They were supposed to meet—for reasons they didn't quite understand right now. "You said yourself that Norman was the last person who saw Annika Johnson before she went missing."

He saw Norman appear behind his mother. She had no idea he was there. She was in survival mode. "I said that he drove her into town and he drove back to the motel, that's it."

"What's the problem, mother?" Norman asked, stepping into view. He eyed Alex. "Sheriff."

Alex paused for a moment unsure of whether he should continue, but he needed answers. "There's a girl whose body we found in the marsh this morning…not Annika, but she was around the same age and I was just wondering if she might have some kind of connection—can I just ask you a few questions, Norman?"

"Of course, come on in." The boy moved on into the living. Alex avoided eye contact with Norma as he moved pass her into the house and over to the living room. He took the seat across from Norman, setting the folder he'd been carrying on the coffee table.

Norma ran into the room, having a seat on the couch next to her son. "He really barely even spoke to Annika." She was some mother. She dedicated her life to that boy.

Norman leaned over to her. "I thought you were making dinner."

"This seems more important," she replied innocently.

Norman turned back to Alex. "I can answer any questions the sheriff has." He glanced at his mother. "Go make dinner." Alex was surprised by his rudeness. He thought Norman was a nice loving boy.

Norma withdrew sheepishly. "Okay." She got up from the couch and started walking over to the kitchen, stopping in the doorway. "But if you need me, I'll be right here." Alex didn't turn around to look at her, but he could hear the hurt in her voice.

"Yeah, I know where the kitchen is," the boy spat. Alex couldn't believe how disrespectful Norman was to his mother. He leaned back in the chair, a proud look upon his face. "So what do you wanna know?"

Alex was in shock, but he had to carry on. "Tell me about Annika. How much did you know about her? You spoke to her?"

The boy thought for a moment. "A little. I had to go down one time and change a light bulb."

"When you spoke to her did Annika tell you she was a prostitute?" Normally Alex would have been hesitant to ask such a question to the boy, but after seeing his change in demeanor…

"Not explicitly, but I got the impression that she was. She said she was working at a party—I didn't think she was a magician." There was a slight smirk on the boy's face that made the sheriff feel a bit uneasy. "I think she was trying to let me know that she was a prostitute."

Alex stared back at him, furrowing his brow. "Why do you think she would've wanted you to know that?"

There was a smugness to the boy that he didn't appreciate. He'd never seen this side of him before. "I really don't know. We were just talking. I told her about how hard things have been for my mother." A pained formed inside Alex. He wished that Norma would allow herself to confide in him. "Maybe because I opened up to her, she felt like opening up to me." Norman leaned in towards him slowly. "Maybe she's lonely. I imagine that's a pretty lonely life."

He could never really read Norman—he was never the same boy. "Yeah, I imagine it is." He stared at him for a moment, hoping to catch something. "Women seem to trust you." Norman seemed surprised by his statement—confused. "I'm thinking of Blair Watson…how she trusted you." He hoped it hit something.

The boy smiled slightly. "I like women. Maybe for spending years so close to my mother."

The sheriff tried to ignore his comment. "Did Annika seem anxious to you?"

Norman laughed haughtily. "Most women do. Have you met my mother?"

Alex fought back the urge to reprimand him. He wasn't going to get emotionally involved in this case. "Did she say she had any troubles?"

"No. She just said she was gonna meet a friend. She didn't say who. I drove with her to show her where the bar was, then she asked me to drive her car back cause she was planning on indulging." The boy seemed to be a master when it came to interrogations.

Alex reached down and grabbed the folder he had brought. "I'm gonna show you a picture…you tell me if you saw anyone outside the bar or arriving that looked like this." He opened up the folder and grabbed the photograph, holding it out in front of the boy.

He watched as Norman's facial expression changed into the sad boy he had seen during the Jimmy Brennan incident. "No. I've never seen that woman."

"Have you interrogated all the weirdoes in this town," Norma's voice shot through the air. "Cause I'm sure any one of them can tell you much more than what we know."

Alex was about to speak when Norman spoke up. "There's no we in this mother. He's asking me questions."

Alex had had enough of these two. It was no wonder Norma was such a mess—her son treated her like shit. "Stop…stop. I'm almost done." He gave the boy a stern look. "Did Annika ever mention a place called the Arcanum club? Or a guy named Bob Paris?"

"No," the boy replied truthfully.

Alex glanced over his shoulder at Norma. "No," she admitted.

"I'm really sorry. I wish we could have been more help," Norman stated, rising off the couch. He was telling him to leave.

The sheriff stood from the chair, gathering his things. "If you remember anything else about you interaction with Annika Johnson, you call me right away."

"Of course, Sheriff." He reached out and shook Alex's hand.

"We will," Norma piped up. These two were a two-headed monster.

He nodded in her direction. "Have a nice dinner." He needed to get out of there. He could believe the night he had just had.