The Dream
By Dewayne Mitchell

It was six o’clock in the morning and I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and got a little drink from my bar. I sat in my chair with a glass of bur ban. In my left hand, I had a Cuban cigar, and I was just sitting back and thinking about life. Three hours passed by, and I found myself dozing off in my chair. Suddenly, the phone rang. I shot up because the sudden ringing from the phone scared me.

I answered it and a woman’s voice said, “Are you the detective?” She talked as if she had seen a ghost. I replied, “Yes, I am. Is there something wrong?” The young lady then told me what was wrong. She tried to calm herself down to make the words seem more clear. She said, “I was coming home from a party on Lakewood Street. When I got home, my door was slightly open. My heart started to race because my two children and my husband were there. I began to panic because I feared the worst. I went in and ran up the stairs, calling each of their names as I went, but I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t get a response from anyone. Their doors were open and I began to walk to their rooms. I saw my two boys laying still in their beds. I leaned over to give them a hug and a kiss, thinking they were as sound asleep as when I left. When I leaned over, I saw blood under them. I began to scream as I ran to my room, only to find my husband lying dead on the floor. I started to cry like a new born baby, because I couldn’t believe what was right before my eyes.”It seemed like the woman could go on and on. She was hysterical with fear, and I just wanted to put her to ease. I interrupted her and told her that I would be over, immediately. Before I put the phone back on the hook, she told me, “My name is Allison Baker and I stay at 1126 Crestville Road.” I told her that I knew exactly where she was and that I’d be there is just a couple of minutes. I began to sit back in my chair and contemplate on what I just heard. Around twelve-thirty in the afternoon, I arrived at her house and immediately got to work on the case.

I knocked on the door and Allison greeted me with a smile, which was very insecure and scared. I was known for solving cases within twenty four hours, and that is exactly what I told her, that her case would be solved within twenty four hours. I examined the entire house, putting all the pieces together. Every single clue I came across, I noted it. Every single sign I saw, I made sure to keep a memory of it in my head. I was just about done, that is until her phone rang. It was ringing for about a minute until I picked it up and held the receiver to my ear. An old, cold voice greeted me and said, “If you want to know about the murder at the Baker’s place, meet me at Blackwood Street in fifty minutes.” This sudden phone call just left me aching to ask who was speaking, but when I did all I got was the operator. I began looking around in the boys’ room and noticed a sparkling piece of jewelry on one of their beds. I picked it up and placed it in my pocket, then heard Ms. Baker’s voice calling out, asking me if I wanted something to eat. I told her that I wasn’t very hungry and kept searching the house for anything else. I found it pretty weird how, all of a sudden, she was acting so calm about the situation, but I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, so I just left the thought alone.

I told her that I would be right back in an hour or so. I left to go and meet with the person who called earlier, the mysterious voice, on Blackwood Street.

When I arrived, I saw a strange old lady around the age of fifty. She told me that, around five-thirty in the morning, she saw Mrs. Baker come home acting funny. “She had a hammer in her hand and walked inside her house. About ten minutes later, I heard three voices screaming. About a few minutes later, she came back outside and got back in her car, driving back to a party she was attending that night. It struck me as being weird that Allison, a woman I had known for so long, who seemed so nice in the eyes of the entire neighborhood, could come home and do something like this.” The lady fell forward and into my arms, crying. She sounded as if she was frightened to death, and I told her that everything was going to be fine. I left her and drove back to Mrs. Baker’s house. I went back inside of the house and, to my surprise, the door was unlocked and slightly open. I wet inside and something hit me in my side from behind. I turned around and noticed a closet door, one which I hadn’t come across earlier. I saw something white hanging inside. I focused my eyes and noticed that it was a pair of white gloves with blood smeared all over them. I went into the kitchen ad greeted Mrs. Baker, then sat her down and asked her a few questions. My final question to her was what was she wearing on the night of the party. She said, “I was wearing a red dress with white gloves. Why?” I looked her in the eyes and then looked away for a second, then looked again as I said, “Because I’ve found your killer.”

She looked surprised. She didn’t have the look of being caught in the act on that beautiful face of hers. There was anxiousness, an anxiousness to know. She asked me who it was. I replied, “The killer is you.” She started to laugh some, and I found laughing quite odd for a woman who had just lost her family to a murderer. She got up and circled the counter, coming behind me and placing her hands on my shoulders. She said, “You’re good detective, really good. It’s too bad that you have to die this way.”She reached for a hammer on the right side of her, the same hammer she used to kill her kids and her husband. I started to back away from her, then fell backward by stumbling over by a piece of wood that stood up in the middle of the kitchen floor. She continued toward me, and I thought I was a goner for sure, but then I woke up. It was all a dream. I looked at the clock and it was six in the morning. I lied back down and tried to go back to sleep. Suddenly, the phone rang. I answered and a woman picked up and asked, “Is this the detective?” I placed the phone back down on the hook and said to myself, “Deja vue.”