Reincarnal Read online

  NORA:

  Please don’t. I’m just trying to help.

  WINTERS:

  I know. Here’s my card, work and home number. But let me write down another number...Here.

  NORA:

  Rich Mathis? Doesn’t he write for --

  WINTERS:

  A certain local weekly that a lot of my colleagues call a liberal rag?

  Yes. But he’s done several damn good articles about these slayings.

  NORA:

  Why not the mainstream media?

  WINTERS:

  Because, frankly, you won’t be taken seriously. Now Rich Mathis? He just might print your story – and your drawing.

  NORA:

  I’m not looking for publicity.

  WINTERS:

  I know you aren’t. My hunch is you’re trying to do the same thing I am: help stop this bastard.

  SOUND:

  Café noise. Clinks of glassware, murmured conversation.

  NORA:

  Thanks for meeting me, Mr. Mathis.

  MATHIS:

  Make it Rich. If I can call you Nora.

  NORA:

  Please. You know, we have some mutual friends.

  MATHIS:

  I know – I buy books from your downstairs neighbor.

  NORA:

  You buy feminist books?

  MATHIS:

  There’s a couple lesbian mystery writers I follow. I like women.

  NORA:

  I like women, too...as friends.

  Anyway, we have mutual acquaintances, and we’re both freelancers, so –

  MATHIS:

  So let’s call the ice broken, okay?

  Detective Winters says you may have an interesting sidebar on the Ripper story.

  NORA:

  That’s right. But when you hear it, you may take me for a flake.

  MATHIS:

  Maybe. But you seem like a nice enough flake, and I’m blogging every day about the Ripper case, so...what do you have?

  NARRATOR:

  Nora knows she isn’t being taken her very seriously...but when she mentions the Ripper collecting the female victim’s panties, Rich Mathis perks up.

  MATHIS:

  Detective Winters mentioned that detail to me, off the record.

  NORA:

  I guess holding back key information is common, in cases like this.

  MATHIS:

  Yes it is...This watercolor of yours, of the killer you see?...I want to put this on the blog. And interview you.

  NORA:

  I’m afraid you haven’t heard it all, yet.

  MATHIS:

  No?

  NORA:

  No. It started at a senior prom – thirty years ago.

  NARRATOR:

  They work together, mostly at the Nora’s apartment, for three days.

  Mathis decides to hold the story for the next print edition of the paper.

  MATHIS:

  Okay! It’s a done deal – just e-mailed the story in, with your drawing as an attachment.

  NORA:

  But not my name!

  MATHIS:

  Come on...let’s sit on the couch...

  SOUND:

  They sit.

  MATHIS:

  I told you. Promised. Your identity is a secret. But that watercolor will appear under a headline – Is This Man the Ripper?

  NORA:

  ... What have we done?

  MATHIS:

  What do you mean?

  NORA:

  I have the sick feeling I’ve just made a colossal ass of myself.

  MATHIS:

  Yeah, but with my help.

  NORA:

  (kidding) So you’re exploiting me?

  MATHIS:

  Well...spending three days with you in close quarters...I’d be lying if I didn’t admit ’exploiting you’ hadn’t crossed my mind once or twice...

  NORA:

  (lightly) Why don’t you put one of those sex ads in the back of your paper? Who knows? Maybe I’ll respond...

  MATHIS:

  Maybe...maybe you will...

  SOUND:

  Squeaking couch, going on a bit; kissing; murmurs indicating petting; but then abruptly stops.

  NORA:

  No! I’m sorry...no...I can’t. Rich,

  I’m sorry, but I told you, I told you...

  RICH:

  (slightly out of breath) I understand.

  NORA:

  It’s not like I’m frigid or anything.

  I’m fine, up until...

  RICH:

  The moment of truth?

  NORA:

  Yes. Yes. Then I feel this icy chill...

  RICH:

  I understand. I really do.

  NORA:

  You do?

  RICH:

  Think about it. This...difficulty of yours.

  NORA:

  Hang-up you mean? I should never have told you! Almost thirty and still a...

  RICH:

  Virgin. Not a dirty word. Nora, this...hang-up may mean that you really were Heather in a former life. The life immediately previous to this one.

  NORA:

  Oh, Rich, you can’t be serious...

  RICH:

  Hey, I’m a journalist – that makes me a combo of cynicism and open-mindedness. I’m merely positing that the trauma of Heather’s death, at a moment of sexual discovery that turned into bloody horror, may be something you carried along into this life.

  NORA:

  Suppose...suppose there’s something to this. What the hell am I supposed to do about it?

  RICH:

  I’m going to give the reporter’s answer.

  NORA:

  Okay.

  RICH:

  Find Heather. See if she existed.

  Maybe if you can to terms with who you were, you can come to terms with who you are.

  SOUND:

  After a few beats, a knock on a doorframe.

  NORA:

  Professor Wyman? Will?

  WYMAN:

  Nora! Come in, come in.

  NORA:

  I’m not interrupting? I hate bothering you at school.

  WYMAN:

  Just reading some very dull papers.

  Sit. Sit.

  SOUND:

  Chair scrape.

  NORA:

  Professor, what would you say to putting me under again? This time we try for a place and a date for Heather’s prom.

  WYMAN:

  A fishing expedition.

  NORA:

  Call it that.

  WYMAN:

  Understand, it’s rather typical for regressed subjects to resist giving certain details, including last names.

  Just as it’s very typical for a subject to immediately seize upon a traumatic incident in regression – like Heather’s violent death.

  NORA:

  But why have I carried this with me into this life? Particularly my connection with ’my’ murderer?

  WYMAN:

  Sometimes, when a life is cut short...according to one theory...we carry an agenda of sorts into our next one. A job left undone.

  NORA:

  You mean, we keep coming back till we get it right.

  WYMAN:

  Or wrong. Who’s to say someone evil, cut short in the midst of his or her evil pursuits, might not try to continue on in a future incarnation.

  NORA:

  Only this murderer is still on the same life – he’s older now. But he has the same blue and brown eyes, and the same, sick...hobby.

  WYMAN:

  Might I make a suggestion? Let’s listen to the recording of your regression again, perhaps several times. See what images come into your mind. See if you can latch onto something specific.

  NORA:

  All right. Do you have time to do that now?

  WYMAN:

  Of course. I am all in favor of your effort to substantiate this psychic link to the Ripper...Shall we begin?

&n
bsp; NARRATOR:

  They listen to the recording of the party game that had turned so sinister, and after the second time through...

  NORA:

  Professor, I got a strong image of the high school gym where that prom was held. It’s a real place.

  WYMAN:

  At your own high school? That would be a natural –

  NORA:

  No! Not my high school. I’m seeing a school gym in Geneva, Illinois – it’s a little town outside Chicago.

  WYMAN:

  Yes, I know where it is. Why would you recognize that particular location?

  NORA:

  Please don’t tell my hipster friends, but I was a cheerleader. We had basketball games at the Geneva High gym, several times.

  WYMAN:

  Still, your subconscious may just be filling in...or...

  NORA:

  Or Heather really did go to Geneva High...

  MUSIC:

  Sting.

  SOUND:

  Coffee shop noise.

  MATHIS:

  Okay, I ran with that one little detail – Geneva High School – and our assumption that some time in the early ’80s a murder may have taken place.

  NORA:

  And?

  MATHIS:

  That original suburban Ripper is getting a lot of play, today. Some say this is the same killer, after a thirty-year hiatus. Others think it’s a copycat.

  NORA:

  What does that have to do with –

  MATHIS:

  The original Ripper’s last victims were Heather Meeker and Rod McRae. Of Geneva, Illinois.

  NORA:

  But...but the media’s been covering those old murders. That means –

  MATHIS:

  You might’ve read something about those killings, just glanced at a newspaper, seen the faces of the victims, maybe the names.

  NORA:

  I could buy that if I hadn’t also had that dream predicting the most recent killing.

  MATHIS:

  I don’t think you predicted, Nora. I think you...witnessed it.

  NORA:

  Through some kind of, what? Psychic empathy with this monster’s other victims?

  MATHIS:

  And with the ’monster’ himself.

  NORA:

  It’s not his point of view I’m seeing. I died in that regression, Rich. And I died in the dream.

  MATHIS:

  Nora, does the date May 30, 1981, mean anything to you?

  NORA:

  Well...yes. It’s my birthday. I was born just before midnight. Why?

  MATHIS:

  Maybe nothing. But, uh...

  NORA:

  What?!?

  MATHIS:

  That’s the night Heather and Rod were killed.

  NORA:

  (very quietly) So...so I am her.

  MATHIS:

  We can’t know that. (a beat) Look, I’ve done some digging. Made some calls. You up for a day trip?

  NARRATOR:

  That afternoon Nora accompanies Rich Mathis on a day trip to Geneva, a lovely little town of quaint shops and restaurants and bike trails...and another trail that leads through streets of Prairie-style turn-of-the-century homes to a very modern facility. A nursing home.

  SOUND:

  Nursing home noise – hallway.

  Footsteps on tile floor, two people.

  MATHIS:

  Heather’s father died ten years ago. Her mother has been here for the last eight years. Alzheimer’s patient.

  SOUND:

  Nurse’s desk. Perhaps softly ringing phone, muffled conversation.

  NORA:

  Excuse me. I’d like to speak to Mrs.

  Meeker.

  NURSE:

  You’re welcome to try. We encourage visitors. But I’m afraid Mrs. Meeker hasn’t spoken a coherent word in years.

  MATHIS:

  How serious is her dementia?

  NURSE:

  It’s a sad situation. She’s only in her sixties, but seems far older – she can eat, feed herself. She can make it to and from the bathroom, with the aid of a walker. That’s the extent of her existence here.

  NARRATOR:

  The woman in the small private room is a frail, tiny, balding, baby bird of a human. She sits in an armchair watching a television with a game show playing and the sound turned off.

  NURSE:

  Mrs. Meeker, you have a visitor.

  NORA:

  (approaching) My name is Nora Chaney, Mrs. Meeker. I hope we might talk...

  SOUND:

  Squeak of chair.

  NORA:

  (whispered) She’s...she’s holding her arms out to me. Rich – Rich, what should I do?

  MATHIS:

  (whispered) Go to her.

  NURSE:

  Mrs. Meeker, you mustn’t get up without help!

  MATHIS:

  (almost to himself) But she is.

  MRS. MEEKER:

  Heather! Oh my darling Heather...you’ve come to visit me at last.

  NARRATOR:

  Nora holds the old woman in her arms. Then, for an hour or more, sits just holding Mrs. Meeker’s hand. Now and then, the old woman, whose dim eyes seem bright now, speaks the name, “Heather.” Her smile angelic.

  NURSE:

  (from doorway) Excuse me, but it’s time for Mrs. Meeker’s supper. You’ll have go.

  MRS. MEEKER:

  (desperate) Don’t leave!

  Heather...my little angel...don’t go!

  NORA:

  I’ll be back...(emotional) Mother.

  SOUND:

  Footsteps in hall. Two people.

  MATHIS:

  I asked that nurse if Mrs. Meeker ever mistook a female visitor for her daughter before. She’s never reacted that way with anyone else.

  SOUND:

  Footsteps in hall fade. Dissolve to thrum of car as they drive back.

  Rain. Windshield wiper noises. Plays under following.

  NORA:

  Oh!

  MATHIS:

  Are you all right?

  NORA:

  I fell asleep.

  MATHIS:

  That’s fine. (lightly joking) You’re not driving. But...Nora, what the hell is it?

  MUSIC:

  Ominous, eerie.

  NORA:

  (as if in a trance) I’m a redhead. In a flight attendant uniform.

  I’m...doing a kind of striptease for this older man, in his fifties but with a lot of plastic surgery, and too-dark hair for his age.

  MATHIS:

  (muttered) Another dream...

  NORA:

  (still trance-like, building excitement) I strip slowly, then I go over to the bed and I just as slowly unbutton his shirt...now I’m stripping him...tug his pants down...then his shorts, and I’m...I’m pleasuring him when the door opens, must’ve forgot the nightlatch, and the man with the thin face and the blue and brown eyes comes in, slams the door, rushes over and there’s no time to scream before the butcher knife comes down...

  MATHIS:

  ...There’s a rest stop. I’m pulling over.

  SOUND:

  Car pulls in. Engine shuts off. Rain continues. Wipers off.

  MATHIS:

  Are you all right?

  NORA:

  He kills couples who are having sex. I get that – but why me? The oldest virgin in Chicago!

  MATHIS:

  I doubt the oldest. Prettiest maybe.

  NORA:

  Take me to Detective Winters. I have to tell her.

  MATHIS:

  Good idea.

  SOUND:

  Car starts up again. Rain. Thunder.

  Dissolve to cop bullpen noise.

  WINTERS:

  We just had a report that at a motel near O’Hare Airport, a maid has discovered two bodies with the Ripper’s usual M.O. Missing panties and all.

  NORA:

  I feel so helpless...

  WINTERS:

&nbs
p; I can’t take you to the crime scene. My superiors aren’t crazy about that article our friend Rich here published. A lot of people around the PD know I feed Rich tips, time to time.

  NORA:

  Then how can I help?

  WINTERS:

  Do I have to draw you a picture?

  You’re the artist.

  NARRATOR:

  So the couple goes back to the loft apartment and Nora makes two more watercolors – one of a redheaded flight attendant, the other of an older man who had thought he’d gotten lucky. She e-mails the new pictures to Winters, who promptly calls her.

  WINTERS: