"Please! Let me explain to you that there is a rational solution for all of this! Just listen! Jamal Lewin's mother came to me every so often for spiritual guidance, even before her son died! Madam Margaret Molina is famous in Chicago! Never heard of me? Your loss, young man! My education is an amalgamation of various arts, spells, private disciplines and mental exercises. Mrs. Lewin was a firm spiritualist! She always overpaid for good advice on her son and his enterprising business ventures. After I started to read her cards and astrally travel to watch over her Jamal that I discovered the kind of business Mrs. Lewin's son was in.

"Keep in mind, sirs, that if I came to the Chicago police back then with my findings I would have been laughed out of the precinct! Imagine telling an officer that I found Jamal Lewin's marijuana mule train route that led to Mexico via astral projection! They'd think me mad...as you do now. But perk up those ears! It is all true!

"I warned her that I saw bad things in the cards for Jamal, bad spirits and angels at war on the Second Heaven plain. Her boy was in danger, and I could also sense the mind of the man who was stalking him. This man's karma was so powerful and dark that it scared me back into my body. I stressed to her that she must warn Jamal that the end of the line was near! She didn't heed Madam Margaret! That is why her boy was found with three of his friends in the Illinois River near Pekin, Illinois! No spirit perforated those bodies with hollow point bullets! A vile piece of flesh did!

"Louisa Lewin was a religious woman, a spiritual lady with a powerful will. I suppose it is no harm to tell you now that she was directing the operations of Jamal's group through her other sons when they came to me tonight! Odd how she stepped into the breech to take over so quickly when Jamal perished! An enterprising woman, for certain, quite street smart and more than schooled in the arts of spiritual power than I first surmised.

"I never counted on what Mrs. Lewin would want from me next! She arrived at my home this evening with two of her younger boys. These men were soldiers in Jamal's gang. They all wanted revenge, especially their mother so they humored her visit to the Madam. These two young men didn't believe in the spiritual side of life and were playing up to their mother. Mrs. Lewin believed and paid me double to find her son's killer. I didn't consider this aiding a felon in the slightest. Who ever did such a thing to Jamal was guilty of murder at least!

"It was child's play for one such as I, really! I held the shirt Jamal died in and licked the sweat off of his childhood basketball...then ran my fingers in the ashes of his urn. Going into the trance world and detaching from my body was accomplished with ease, gentlemen! The beacon was easy to follow for I knew where Jamal died. Once at this place, sniffing out the spiritual bile left by the killer was a cakewalk. This was no policeman who murdered her boy! I felt that fearful persona again, but it was quiet, muted and docile. I thought it bizarre as I flew to a hillside residence near the river and saw the body of the man who killed Jamal Lewin. He was very easy to sneak up on for he was asleep.

"It is too bad that you sirs cannot see that realm I traveled through! Between the layers of these heavens I flew through clouds of billowing light, shifting in majestic colors, purples and impossible to describe scarlet hues painting the walls of reality! In a land of no starlight such dimensional travel is so incredible and intoxicating that it is nearly irrepressible! Goodness! So sorry! I was enraptured by the memory! Where was I? Oh yes, the killer of Jamal!

"This man was eerie and not like a normal man. How so? He was an albino, incredibly alabaster of skin tone and ivory of hair. I wanted to find out who he was, but the seemed to have a natural mental defense system set up. This didn't bother Madam Margaret at all and I plunged into his flesh to read his spirit...to possess that lean body and learn the secrets of his mind.

"As I entered his body I felt an peculiar thing that I never have encountered before. Just as I went in him I felt shoved back, but then fell in easily. I swam around in his body, made him sit up and look about. The interior of his flesh was unusual, empty and cold...almost as if he owned no spirit! I felt no fight at all as I directed him to stand up and walk in his home. But since I felt no spirit I also found his mind sealed. I couldn't tell very much of who he was or where he was from. His flesh felt strong, but I could see scars on his nude body from gunshots and knife wounds. The eyes of this albino man were very good, unlike most with albinism. My spirit could sense that there was implants in his pink eyes that made him see better than the Creating Spirit intended. His body held stunning grace in those muscles as they responded to my commands. I was shocked that he moved with the lucidity of a dancer.

"But I could smell the murder on him...many murders! That man, god of goddesses! What a man! You all must find this killer! He is a paradox of brutal spirituality, so dark, yet cloaking himself in religious light. This person has so much pride in him, such power, yet no remorse.... so unique! What sort of a man was this? I read in the fringes of his persona that he was no policeman or detective, so what was his interest in Jamal Lewin's operation?

"As I started to look through his papers I felt a tug on my mind. Suddenly, I saw the spirit of this man. Blessed be the Earth-mother! He was horrific and powerful! It was like a billowing spirit out of a B-horror movie, smoky and bearing red eyes in its matrix of ever changing forms. This thing seized a hold of my spirit and rended me from the body of this man...a name I learned only a tad of as his spirit re-entered his body. Honestly, sirs! It is true! Jack...Back...Dack...Sack...that was all I could glean from him.

"Then I was sucked back to my studio loft, to the place where I hold court, have my readings and launch my astral travels. And when I came back, well, you know what I found! You have to believe me! There is no way Madam Margaret Molina ever could've done this terrible thing! This man, Jack or Dack, this spirit must've leapt out of his body and followed the astral string I leave tied back to my flesh. Yes! Although I feel he is ignorant of such astral traveling, his instincts must have kicked in. It was his first reaction when confronted by a new scenario was to kill! That is it! He had to have come back, possessed me and performed this heinous act of triple murder!

"I'm a respected medium and spiritualist! How could I suddenly get up and bashed in the head of a good customer with my crystal ball? My hands are barely strong enough to do that! My arthritis is terrible! And I don't own a gun! Do you really think I pulled one of those young men's guns and shot them both? That is preposterous! I have never fired a gun! I don't care if my hand was cut on the crystal ball! How do you know that is my blood on that gun? Do some tests! I-you have to believe me!

"IT WASN'T ME WHO KILLED THEM!"

The end

Copyright c)2001 Steven L. Shrewsbury