Truth Among the Shadows of My Mind

                        Truth Among the Shadows of My Mind

 It seemed like some bizarre magical power had broken into my dreams, taken over my mind and led me from my student apartment on the campus of Salisbury University into a fog-covered woody area deep in Pokomoke State Forest.

      Unfamiliar music had interrupted my dreams and led me as if in a trance to follow twists and turns along a route that I hadn’t traveled for many years. Yet, the atmosphere surrounding the area had caused something to work its way back into my consciousness.

    A chill like mid-December overtook me soon after the melody’s hypnotic spell brought me into the uncharted area. But I had gone to sleep on the Ides of June, not the middle of winter. 

  The sudden burst of arctic cold knocked me off my feet, tossing me like one of the leaves lining the ground to the edge of a darkened abyss.  I regained my balance just in time to avoid falling head first into an abandoned well.  The frigid air actually came blowing up from the center of the hole, while everything around it remained in mid-summer mode.

       Until I came in contact with the well sweat had poured from every inch of my body.

      In my dream state, I had hiked five miles into the Delmarva woods in an uncontrollable quest to unravel the mystery surrounding the murder of my Aunt Bernice and the fire that later destroyed her neighborhood two years before.

      I told police at the time that I had discovered my aunt’s body in her bedroom closet with a bullet shot through her head.

     My auntie had lived in a cozy little home on the outskirts of the wooded state recreation area. Her social life had centered around her church and helping the troubled youth in the neighborhood find the way to better lives.

     My plans for a Saturday afternoon nap certainly had not included a subconscious side excursion into that episode from my earlier life and an abandoned well with a 40-degree drop in temperature. 

     Shortly after my dream state transportation into the park a huge shadow had appeared before me and a hypnotic voice booming from the figure had commanded me to follow it into one of the most remote sections of the recreation area—and to that well:

    Attention Harry Warrington. This is your Aunt Bernice. You have wondered for years who did away with me. The answer lies on the bottom of the darkened pit in front of you. At its bottom you will find clues that will unfold the true tale of my death and the cause of the fire that destroyed our neighborhood of Pokomoke East so many years ago.

   Pushed forward by a mixture of fear and curiosity, at the bottom of the well I found what looked like a journal. Scrawled across the first page—the signature of Hugo Longo, the head mobster who had controlled the area on the edge of the forest for more than a decade.

      Hugo’s claims to fame included a large chunk of the drug trade and a number of murder-for-hire schemes in the seedy side of the crabbing industry.

       My trembling fingers turned the yellowed pages of the journal to read:

       We allowed the reputation of Bernice Warrington to hypnotize the youth of East Pokomoke for far too long. She stopped the growth of our business enterprise by recruiting away some of our best rookie operatives. I put plenty of extra deniro into the pay envelope of Sonny Preston, one of my most trusted lieutenants. He was supposed to take care of our problem with one shot to Bernice’s temple.

    Of course, we wanted someone to discover the body as a warning to those stupid enough to think they could pick up in the future where Bernice left off. We also didn’t want the local cops and a murder rap to put the kibosh on our business. After Sonny posted his warning, we purefied auntie’s home territory with a campfire in the woods set by my friend Tommy the Torch Buccato. 

    Those killed as part of the collateral damage paid the price for screwing with free enterprise.

   Other memories flash into my mind:

—A torrential flood that moved the remnants of Bernice’s hood from two miles outside the Pokomoke State Forest into the far reaches of the state park.

—A decades-old unsolved arson whose cause Maryland’s best detectives never tracked down.

 —No charges ever filed against the mobster or any of his associates in connection with my aunt’s murder.

     Suddenly, shaken out of my nightmare, I heard:

 “This is the police. Open up immediately.”

      Loud knocking shook me from my sound sleep back into a frightening reality.

      After I opened the door, a deputy Wicomico sheriff shoved a piece of paper into my face and shouted,

    “You are under arrest for the murder of Bernice Warrington. You have the right to remain silent.   Anything you say may be held against you. You have the right to an attorney.”

      They then hauled me off to the Salisbury municipal lockup.

      Turns out everything about my little hike in the woods, discovering my aunt’s body, etc. all came from a true life nightmare that had only hinted at the calamity that I now faced.

      Sure, they discovered Aunt Bernice’s body with a bullet through her head, but it was I who put it there.

     She had no right to leave my rightful inheritance to her silly little church.

     I had set her house on fire to cover up my revenge, and a flood caused by an unpredicted hurricane that soon followed had destroyed all but the most important evidence.  

      Hugo had long pledged to get even with auntie, but Interpol had arrested him and his gang in Bermuda the week before the house fire.  

     I had made Auntie pay for cheating me out of what I thought rightfully belonged to me and hidden my crime for two years.  I had gotten my revenge, but my past finally had caught up with me and it looked like I would spend my final days behind bars.