Cracked-Shadow

by E. A. Petrick

The young survivor of a mass murder, Gina Adams, believes she’s being stalked. Considering that she’s still under psychiatric care, the police are skeptical. Gina insists on filing a formal complaint and the police are obligated to investigate. Two detectives, assigned to the case, run the composite picture of Gina’s stalker through the criminal database. But when a baffled technician asks them how is it possible that the stalker matches up with a female victim of Nebraska, they believe the young woman should not have been released yet from the maximum security psychiatric institution.

ISBN-1-59431-477-2 Mystery / Romance / Suspense



Chapter 1

Gina picked up her stalker less than five minutes after she left the WPPO-TV building.

It was still three weeks to Christmas, but Marquette Avenue was already frantic with hungry gift shoppers, sacrificing their lunch hour. The elaborate lights, wrapped around every tree, and blazing day and night, gave the avenue the look of a runway. It was another wet, snowy day in Minneapolis. All the weather stations advised to stay indoors. Drowning in slush was the new buzzword for peril.

Gina had no one to shop for and would have gone to the cafeteria, but ten minutes to lunchtime, Mariel from productions came to ask for a ton of favors.

Three police officers from Downtown Command had come this morning to see Joel Parwick, the Productions Manager. His assistant, Mariel, ended up with all the “action” items they had worked out.

“Those cops left me a ton of material.”

Mariel poignantly staggered under the armload of files. “I have to go through all this. I have to find motivating factors that’ll increase awareness in the community. Then outline factors that reduce crime.” She dropped the load unceremoniously on Gina’s desk, in order to be able to bring her thumb and forefinger together, then continued. “I was this close to telling those cops, that if they wanted to reduce the fear of crime, they’d better get cracking and catch that son-of-a-bitch who’s been doing these serial killings.”

The moment Gina heard those words she knew that her lunch would not be eaten in the cafeteria. A force stronger than anything else, even fear, made her rise. She mumbled an inarticulate apology and bolted out of the office. She grabbed her blue parka, finished dressing in the elevator and barged through the revolving door.

The temperature hovered just above freezing. She slung her knapsack over her shoulder, cleared her lungs, and followed her feet along Marquette Avenue.

In place of a Christmas bonus, her boss, Source and Research Director, Frould Nystrom, gave each of his staff two hours for lunch for the last week of November and the entire month of December. Most of her colleagues were so pissed-off with this gesture that every day a few of them didn’t bother to return to work after lunch. She didn’t mind. She was still new. Two weeks ago she had circled Loring Lake and got back before any of her colleagues returned. The next day, when she did it again, she realized someone was following her. She turned around so often that passersby started to stare.

An elderly man touched her arm. “Are you all right, dear? Is someone bothering you?”

She managed a tight smile. “I’m looking…an aunt from out of town. I haven’t seen her in a while. Is that lady down there carrying a blue suitcase? I don’t have my glasses.”

The man followed her eyes. “It’s hard to tell these days…the way young people dress, but I think that group down there is all young men.”

“Right next to them, standing by the lamppost, looking this way.”

He stared again, shaking his head. “I don’t see anyone…I’m sorry, dear. I probably need new glasses.”

She thanked him and hurried up the street.

If the stalker persisted, she‘d have to go to the police. She couldn’t tell anyone at work. They would turn her concern to the new hot topic for gossip. And if she was wrong…she needed her job. If she lost it, Mrs. Gold would call her caseworker. Letta Brown was overworked and stressed out. She’d get angry. She’d start asking her whether she was taking her medication, if she was having flashbacks again and if she was keeping her appointments with Dr. Simpson. And once Dr. Simpson’s name was mentioned, she knew that words like re-lapse, setback, instability, delusions, would come down faster than the fat, wet snowflakes, plastering her hair into a glistening cap. So, she spent her two-hour lunches walking the downtown streets, admiring displays. In reality, she was checking to see how far behind her stalker was.

Last Sunday she had volunteered to work so her boss wouldn’t miss his weeklong Christmas vacation. She’d gone out for lunch and stopped by the Gap window. It was a brilliant, sunny day. She had tilted her head to give the impression that she was avoiding the sun and spent a few moments studying her stalker.

The woman had stopped fifty feet down the street and half turned, to study a tinted window. She was dressed the same way she had been every time during the last ten days since Gina had fist noticed her. She wore a light beige, vinyl jacket, three-quarter length, and tied with a belt. On her feet were brown shoes, heavy-looking, old fashioned. Mrs. Gold, the supervisor of the Cramden half-way house would call them clunkers. Her light brown hair was long and frizzy, suggesting a cheap, bad perm. She wore brown-rimmed glasses, pointed at the corners. Gina felt these were not products of the renewed interest in sixties and seventies fads. Her face was ordinary, but in a strange way that gave one nothing to focus on. It had no outstanding characteristic features.

She rubbed her eyes and resumed walking.

She stopped at the Neiman Marcus window. The woman next to her was talking on the cell phone. She waited until she finished and then leaned over. “Excuse me, I left my glasses at work. I’m supposed to meet a secretary from our client’s office and pick up a package. She said she would be wearing a beige coat. Is that lady down by the phone booth carrying a package?”

The woman frowned but turned where she indicated. “Which phone booth?”

“On the corner, just before the bus bench.”

“There’s no one on the bench.”

“Up from the bench, by the phone booth.”

“There’s no one in the phone booth.”

“Just beside it. She’s standing there, looking this way. She’s wearing a beige jacket….”

“There’s no one there.”

“How can you not see her? She’s looking straight at us…in that vinyl jacket.”

The woman started backing away, suspicious. “Where do you see vinyl? It’s freezing.”

“That’s what I was wondering,” she grimaced.