SPIRITUAL REPENTANCE


A 12-year-old girl was shot dead on the street.

I saw it. I mean, I first heard it had happened. Then I went back in time and floated above the scene, watching the police bustle around the corpse and take photos and look for the cartridge case and keep the curious spectators at a distance. After that, I went a little farther back in time and watched how it actually happened.

Yes, being a ghost has its advantages, but I assure you you wouldn't want to change places with me.

I had only one more murder left to solve until I would be allowed to join the other souls in the netherworld. The end of the curse was so near and I was so at the end of my patience.

This case looked promising. I have to tell you that with the DNA analysis, security cameras and cellphone tracing, the police usually solves a murder before I do. To be more precise, I can usually find the murderer quickly enough. Delivering the information is the nightmare. I can only make my voice heard through the medium of... well, mediums. Clairvoyants, fortunetellers, seers, psychics, soothsayers, whatever else they may be called. I prefer "seer", but it doesn't really matter. What makes things difficult is that people don't take them seriously on the grounds that they're crazy. Which, I have to admit, they are. But what else can I do when the "sane" people have closed their minds to everything otherworldly and refuse to acknowledge that someone like me could even exist?

All right, let's focus on the case. I know who fired the shot. He missed. He was aiming at someone else. That's why the police will never solve this crime. What can they do when there is no connection between the murderer and the victim? Baring some very lucky break, they have virtually no chance of finding the perpetrator. And I know there are going to be no lucky breaks in this case – unless, of course, I will do something about it. But the journalists don't understand that. Like hyenas having a feast on the carcass of a buffalo, they will go on casting sanctimonious stones from their columns, implanting the image of the corrupt and incompetent police in the minds of their readers. This world is a anthill hill bustling with nonsense. How I long to get away!

Not to heaven, mind you. It doesn't exist and neither does hell. There would be no point, because dead people's souls can't feel pleasure or pain. There is only the netherworld where the souls dwell in absolute tranquility, kind of floating in nothing. They could "talk" to each other if they wanted to, but why would they? You have no idea what a delight it is to just chill without having to do or speak or think or feel. I was able to experience it for a moment barely long enough to start believing the curse wasn't valid. And then I was mercilessly dragged back here, doomed to wander above and among and inside the people until I had helped them solve a hundred murders. Not prevent murders, but bring a hundred murderers to justice – that's my punishment.

I don't have any physical needs. My mind is filled with yearning for the calmness I got a glimpse of. The wait is unbearable.

Sorry. I know complaining won't help. In order to get away from here, I have to solve this case. Now, the murderer was a hired killer. But why would he fire a bullet into a crowd and risk hitting an innocent bystander?

I can't find out which person he wanted to kill, because he felt no hatred towards his target. He was only doing his job. Neither can I find the intended victim by interpreting the emotions of the people who were near the victim, because everyone was running away in utter panic, so it's impossible for me to tell which one of them knew or guessed they were the target and which ones were merely terrified of a gunshot.

How did I get in this mess in the first place, you may ask. It was because of the man who was going to publish some embarrassing stuff from decades ago which no longer had any meaning apart from ruining my reputation in the eyes of this hypocriticial world where everyone has some dirty secrets but everyone insists they're clean as Caesar's wife and pharisaically crucify everyone who's had the bad luck of getting exposed. I had to kill the jerk to close his mouth. How was I to know his mother was a witch? How was I to have any idea that ludicrous hocus-pocus with the black candles and dead chickens was actually real? Well, the point is – a grown-up man perfectly capable of taking care of himself, and an inquisitive scumbag at that, he was still a tiny innocent helpless baby in the eyes of his mommy. So she not only delivered me to the scaffold, she put that curse on me, the hag.

I guess I tend to gab too much. Let's get back to the case. Without knowing who the intended victim was, I can't expose the killer, because the police wouldn't have anything to hold him for. There is no evidence connecting him to the murder of the girl. I can see he disassembled the gun and threw the pieces away after the botched shooting. No fingerprints anywhere. He's not a complete idiot after all.

I could follow the killer for a couple of past days and see whom he was pursuing, but I think I'd better go further into the past first to identify the person who ordered the hit. Then the police will have more to work with. After all, all they get from me is information. They will still have to gather physical evidence that would hold up in court.

I can't believe I eagerly read one murder mystery after another when I was still alive. How I admired the authors' cleverness! And what a letdown it was to deal with real murders. It seems like half of them are just one guy stabbing or clubbing or chairing another guy when they drink together and fall out. Which is obviously not the case here, but the sad truth is that really difficult murder cases are very rare.

I've had many disappointments. Such as the man who cleverly pushed his drunken wife into a lake where she drowned. I gave a seer a vision, but that was no evidence. All the people were convinced it had been him, as was the police. He had the motive and the opportunity, but there was no proof he actually did it. It was night and there were a dozen people walking back and forth in that area at various times. Like his lawyer correctly pointed out, the murderer could have been anyone of them, or the woman could have even drowned by accident, drunk as she was. In an American TV series, the man might have been convicted, but the real courts can't convict on probability.

I wish I would have been cursed with a nicer type of crime, such as counterfeiting or larceny. A theft of jewels worth millions of euros – now that would be something!

But I can't go and beg the witch who put the curse on me, because the stupid cow got run over by a bus the day after I was executed. Don't ask me if it was karma. I don't know anything about those things.

But enough of the chatter now. I have followed the killer long enough into the past. He is talking to a man who looks moderately sinister and thinks he's important.

Evidently the mark's name and photograph have been given to the killer previously. "You found out where he lives?" the client asks. The killer nods.

Well, I got what I came here for – the client's identity – but the rest of their conversation is pointless. They are going over irrelevant details. I mean, details which I already know from the future. Like the deadline and where the payment is going to be after the job is done. Yawn...

Now, I could go further back in time hoping to find out the identity of the mark. The problem is that returning to the future is excruciatingly slow. Traveling into the past is easy and therefore tempting, but you'll regret it later when you're bored to... regrettably not to death, but remaining conscious all along on your way to the future. That's why I'd better not stray too far into the past. It makes more sense to return to the time early enough before the murder and follow the killer to see whom he is pursuing.

* * *

Hello again. I have survived a tedious trip into the future, after which I observed the killer – how he frustratedly hunted the target trying to catch him in a safe place. (Safe for killing him without showing oneself on a camera.)

As I told you in the beginning, the killer bungled the shot, plain and simple. Now I know why. He was a drug addict and had postponed his daily fix in order to get done with this murder. He miscalculated. His hands started to shake too early, but he was pressed for time. So rather than postpone everything for another day, potentially for several days, he decided to take the shot.

This sounds like a bad joke, but you get what you pay for. The client wasn't exactly an oligarch and the blackmailer had already bled him big time.

Anyway, I am currently on my way to the seer I often work with. She can be difficult at times, but she's the only one I've found to whom I can transmit verbal information rather than mere images. I have chosen today because it's 13 days after the murder. Thirteen is a good symbolic number, as you may have heard.

I float into her lounge. There's someone with her. No matter, I can go back in time by an hour or two. Wait... It can't be! Her guest is emotionally connected to the murder. Why?

I enter the guest's mind. She won't feel it, because she's sane. But I do feel what I'm looking for. The surprise almost knocks me off my feet, if you pardon me the lame attempt of a pun.

She is the mother of the dead girl!!

Why does it matter, you may ask.

I'm asking myself the same question a moment later, floating above the two, absent-mindedly ignoring their conversation.

What if she's a regular customer? Then, if I went back to one of her past visits, I could make the seer warn her that her daughter is going to be in great danger.

Am I out of my mind, I wonder the next moment. Why on Earth should I want to prevent the murder? Every human being dies sooner or later. What difference does it make if the girl lives 50 or 70 years more? I know it's a big deal for the living, but it's meaningless from the perspective of the universe.

Besides, the kid means nothing to me. I don't know anything about her and I couldn't care less.

Most importantly, I can't wait to get away from this world where I don't belong and with which I'm more than fed up. If I prevent this murder rather than deliver the murderer to justice, I will have to start anew with another case.

Yet, something about this bungled murder touches something inside me. (You don't need to tell me how absurd this sounds.)

I have already found 100 murder cases to solve, haven't I? Surely I'll be able to find one more.

But the final peace is so close. All I have to do is to go into the mind of the madwoman (wisewoman to you) and give her some information.

Then again, I'm not in such an awful hurry, am I? I can at least go back in time and look for that mother's previous visit. Maybe she has never been here before. Then there's nothing I can do anyway.

But if she has been coming to consult the seer on a regular basis, she might well have been doing it on one and the same weekday. Maybe two weeks earlier?

I go back fourteen days.

Yes, there she is.

The murder is due tomorrow. I could tell the seer to tell the mother that her daughter will be in danger and mustn't be allowed to leave the house. "Tomorrow" is simple. No numerical date that could be misunderstood. No moon cycle or other astrological nonsense. She'll understand "tomorrow", there can be no doubt about that.

What should I do? Get free or save a child's life?

In my current state and form, I ought to be rational and sensible. But I can't help it. I enter the mind of the seer.

"You recognize me, don't you?"

"Legemoth be praised! I greet you, noble Azai," [that's what she has chosen to call me], "the bearer of Bardkiel's mighty sword and the eternal flame of Selytarel's wisdom!"

"Quite. Now, listen carefully. There is something of vital importance that you have to tell to the woman who is with you right now."



(C) Olavi Jaggo
First published: 2022-02-28
This version: 2024-08-10




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