Interference
It all started, like so many other stories, with a simple comment she left on social media. She had lived a life that would sound like fiction pushed over the edge of reality and beyond. She could look someone in the eye for a few seconds and get a feel for their authenticity, and she was seldom wrong these days.
‘She’ was of course Laurie Wilson, 45 years old and as she would describe herself, “tired and tainted.” With two failed marriages behind her, where domestic abuse played a role in the demise of one marriage, Laurie certainly had reason not to trust men, but her distrust eventually spread to the rest of humanity.
After her second divorce Laurie resigned from her job as a commercial artist at an advertising firm. She was sick and tired of being the general dogsbody while the executives, who did none of the actual work, took all the credit for a successful campaign. As she hoped, two of their bigger clients soon noticed a marked difference in the quality of the work her old company produced for them and soon found out that Laurie had left. Their regular assignments kept her solvent for the first two years of working from home. However, Laurie was now a single woman in a cut-throat business. It did not take her long to realize that she had to be two people and that there were times and places when and where she had to leave her artistic side behind in her studio and become a hardened business woman.
Her work became an all-consuming endeavor, but also a lonely one. She was not looking for romance, but missed the presence of company at home, in her office and studio. Although she loved music and enjoyed playing and listening to it while she worked, she found that the lack of the sound of another human voice drove her nuts sometimes, as did her own thoughts. She discovered the existence of podcasts and on-line videos. The ones where true crimes were discussed, became her favorites.
Although she mostly took in the information and descriptions of the crimes, she seldom became involved in discussions and seldom allowed any of these stories to affect her, for her it was, after all, just background noise. From time to time however, a story would stick with her, mostly those pertaining to children. Laurie always wanted children, but mostly due to her lack of judgement when it came to life partners, she never had any. Yes, by the time she learned to judge the characters of the people she met it was too late for her.
It was a story on one such crime that changed her life. Laurie started following the story of a mother who killed her three children. For the first time in a long time she experienced emotions which she thought she did not have anymore. The story dominated headlines for months and the podcasters and vloggers had more than enough new information to share on almost a daily basis. Laurie had to be very disciplined and force herself to deal with her personal and business e-mail before rushing to open videos and podcasts on the case. Luckily she was able to continue with her photographic and artwork while catching up on the latest news. It started to frustrate her that the mother’s court appearances were postponed time after time. It frustrated her even more to see how many people actually has sympathy for and were making excuses for the mother. Laurie had never been a religious person and forgiveness was never one of her strongest attributes. Having had an abusive parent and one abusive husband she could not find a single ounce of pity for the woman she saw in the court room. Laurie thought the woman was the epitome of everything that was evil. She wished the woman would just die and did not care how, be it via lethal injection or by the hands of another inmate. “Suicide, would not be a bad idea either, it will save someone else from getting into trouble for her death.” Laurie thought to herself.
Regardless of Laurie’s increasing frustration, and that of the bloggers and vloggers, the woman was being handled with kid gloves by the justice system, or so it appeared. Even the state prosecutor appeared to look out for this woman, or so it appeared to Laurie. Finally, Laurie could not stand the nonsensical lack of progress in the case and took the time to leave a comment below one of the videos.
Feeling somewhat relieved having now shared her opinion, Laurie continued with her day which just happened to be a particularly busy one. Photographs and images she printed a week prior still had to be copied into story boards for a meeting later that afternoon. Her hair also needed washing and her suit a good steam treatment to rid it of the creases from a previous meeting.
It was not until the next morning when Laurie opened her laptop that she noticed anything amiss. A notification of a private message on one of the social media sites blinked at the bottom right hand corner of her screen, something she never had before. She rushed to open it. It was a one-liner and even after reading it a few times Laurie could not make any sense of it. She did not have much time to mull it over though, as she had yet another meeting with the same client she saw the previous day. There were some issues with her ideas for the advertising campaign and she had to re-do some of her work to suit the client’s needs. Laurie quickly took a screenshot of the message and filed it on her computer. She also chose to listen to music while she worked as she could not afford any distractions that particular morning.
Her new storyboard was a better interpretation of the copywriter’s words and Laurie left a satisfied client behind. Assured that a pay check would be coming soon Laurie decided to treat herself to a proper lunch and a new pair of shoes.
Laden with parcels she returned home late afternoon. Having extended her lunch to include desert she decided not to bother with dinner. Instead she decided to have a long steaming bath while reading a good book. It was only shortly before she got into bed that she remembered the message. She took a while to decide whether she would leave it until the next morning or to go to her office and re-read it. Although the house was cold, she knew that it would most likely bother her enough to prevent her from going to sleep Maybe, with less on her mind, she would be able to figure out the cryptic message and maybe there would be a new post of the progress of the case. Going to the social media site first, she found that the message had since been deleted. Knowing that she had saved a screenshot she logged out of the site and opened the saved message on her computer.
Even comparing the message to her comment did nothing to solve the puzzle. More confused than before she closed her laptop and headed for bed.
Being a mild winter morning Laurie was eager put the final touches to her client’s work and get on with other things. Breakfast consisted out of a small bowl of breakfast cereal and coffee, which she took to the studio with her. Smiling to herself she switched the computer on. Her effort was instantly met with a variety of messages displayed on her screen. Messages from her service provider warning her that there were numerous dubious attempts to access her accounts, messages from a variety of sites, including her e-mail service asking her to change her passwords as her account had been blocked due to nefarious efforts to access it. Knowing that she will not get anywhere by panicking Laurie started to follow instructions. By mid-morning she was finally able to get on with her work and felt a huge sense of relief when she finally could push the ‘send’ button on her completed work.
Tired and irritable, she logged out of her computer and closed her office door just before dusk. Tired and distracted from her immediate surroundings she walked right into the corner of a coffee table. “Dammit…” she exclaimed while rubbing her shin. Rubbing her watering eyes, she immediately noticed the reason for her accident. Her whole lounge was in disarray. Chairs were turned upside down and covers were ripped, paintings were pulled off the walls and books were pulled from the shelves.
“What in the world…” Laurie rushed to check her front door, finding that it was still locked and bolted as she left it the previous evening. Rushing from room to room Laurie found that not a single room was left undisturbed. She could not believe that she did not hear a single thing while working in her office and studio which were located in her basement. Her confusion increased when she could not find a single window tampered with and her kitchen door also locked and bolted on the inside.
The police told her not to touch anything and to wait for them to come, which took them almost an hour to do. After she gave her statement they took a few photographs and fingerprints from the coffee table and doors. They also took her fingerprints to eliminate them from the ones they took. By the time they left Laurie was utterly rattled. So rattled that she even considered calling her, non-violent, but bastard of a first husband. She realized soon enough though that he would most likely be out drinking with his buddies and not worth much by the time he got to her and instead she started busying herself with getting her bedroom in a more comfortable, livable state.
She continued her quest the following morning and it was while putting the cereal box back in the cupboard that she discovered the note written on the back of the box.
‘See where being clever got you.” It was signed with the same initials as the message on her computer. Laurie called one of the cops on the number on the card he left her. He was about to go off duty and told her to take a picture of the note and use her phone to send it to him, he would collect the original on his way back to the station the next day. He also asked her to check for and make a list of missing items while she was tidying up.
After hours of righting her furniture and packing things back into place, Laurie could not find a single missing item. By mid-afternoon she had done what she could and had decided against having her lounge chairs re-covered, but to instead buy a few more modern chairs later in the week. She had barely entered her office when her cell phone rang. It was the other cop who attended the scene the previous evening. All the fingerprints they found were her own. His partner had also called him and asked that she print the message she received on her computer for him. What shocked her though was that the cop informed her that they may have to collect her laptop as well in order to try and trace the IP address of the person who sent the message. Laurie could not afford not to have access to her computer for a day or longer. “At least they are being thorough and not acting like I am some loon…” she thought. At least she could read and reply to her e-mail on her phone or tablet and the rest would just have to wait. She thought that perhaps she could spend the next few days doing some creative art just for fun, it had been a long time since she took a few days off.
The second cop, the partner of the one she phoned that morning arrived unexpectedly while she was making her second cup of coffee for the day. As she had not made a connection between the message on her computer and the chaos in her home the day before, he asked her to tell him the story behind that. Once he had finished making his notes he indeed collected her laptop and the cereal box. The policeman observed that the red letters on the box was painted in a red substance. Lauri could not believe that she did not notice it, but then again, she was so shocked by the message that she did not notice much of anything else. Laurie told him that she had various art materials in her studio, but that she hardly ever brought any of it upstairs and as she was in her office and studio all morning it was unlikely that it could have been taken from there without her noticing. He promised to have the substance analyzed and if it was found to be paint he would be back to collect all her red paints. As most of her work was now done digitally Laurie did not mind that at all and besides she was relieved that he would have a reason to come back. Her lonely existence was now taking a toll on her. As an only child with both parents deceased she also had nowhere else to go.
After the policeman left Laurie realized that it was too late in the day to start an art project and decided to make herself a few snacks and have it while reading her book. She had left a bookmark in the book indicating the last page she read. Scanning the page, she was shocked that she could not remember reading it before. Turning pack to the previous page she found that she could not remember anything from it either. Frantically paging through the book she was sick to discover that she could not remember any of it. Baffled she turned the book over and scanning the front page she recognized it as the same book she had been reading for the past few days. “I must be going insane, or maybe it is the stress of the past few days…” she told herself while throwing the book on the seat next to her.
At a loss as to what she could do to keep herself busy she took her crisps and biscuits to her office and plugged her tablet in to charge. While waiting for it to come on she decided to clear her whiteboard. Among the many scribbled notes one in particular stood out. It stood out as it was written in red while all the others were written in black marker. The note read; ‘I tell you, on the day of judgement people will give account of every careless word they speak. Matthew 12:36’ Laurie attacked the board with wet cloth, but although the notes she made came off with ease the one written in red remained, regardless of how hard she tried to clean it.
Laurie nearly jumped out of her skin when her cell phone rang.
“Hi Laurie, it’s Sam…”
“Sam?”
“Yeah, Sam. Sam from your old office. Remember, Sam, your buddy, your bringer of good coffee…?”
“Oh yeah, hi Sam…” Laurie decided to play along regardless of the fact that she could not remember anyone called Sam.
“Yes. Listen, have you heard or seen the news?”
“What news?”
“Yeah well I read your comment on that case…”
“What case?”
“You know… the one of the mother who killed her three kids. Well I guess you had been working too hard to watch the news… she committed suicide last night. They found her in her jail cell. Overkill if you ask me, she cut her wrists and then hanged herself. The position they found her in made it look as if she was crucified, she was hanging from her neck and her bloody hands were spread out along the wall…. Strange, don’t you think?”
“Yes… I guess so…”
“Are you okay Laurie? You sound strange. Obviously working day and night, get some rest my friend…”
“I will, I promise…” Laurie did indeed feel tired.
At the police station Detective Martin Brown was finishing his report. It has been ten days since they went out on that break-in / disturbance case and they have not heard from the woman again, but the final results just came in from the lab. This case truly had him baffled. No fingerprints but that of the homeowner, no sign of strange activity on the woman’s computer and even stranger than that, the blood the note was written in appears to belong to the woman herself. Yes, the lab took it upon themselves to do an DNA test once they discovered that the note was scribbled in blood and compared the DNA to that of a hair found on the woman’s laptop and it matched. “Truly strange,” Detective Brown thought, “the woman did not appear to have lost her mind at all…”
Copyright Lynne L 2020