Dr. Juan Moisés De La Serna
The Psychic Adviser

Chapter 2. Nothing makes sense

It had been several years since I managed to enhance my abilities, those that had brought me so many problems and that with practice and training I had managed to subdue.

At first those flashes came to me, which even made me lose consciousness, something quite uncomfortable since I even fell, with the subsequent consequences that when I woke up I was in pain and sometimes even bruised.

I don’t know why, but over time these experiences, so to speak, became more and more frequent, maybe due to the exigencies of circumstances, when I began my collaboration with the police. I don’t know if it works like that, but I started to get “answers” to the cases in which I was involved.

I think it was unintentional, so to speak, after the first case in which they told me all the sort of details and the evidence collected even showing me at the crime scene, I don’t know why, but that night I had, I don’t know how to define it, a nightmare.

At first I had attributed it to the impression of participating in a case, because of the amount of blood that I had seen in the images of the victim or that had been found on the knife, but something happened that I did not expect.

The next day I went to the police station early and there I asked to see that policeman to tell him about my nightmare, who from the beginning had laughed at me, saying I was a fraud, and he was trying to prove it with that case, in which he hoped me to fail.

“Good morning, I’ve come to tell you something,” I said as I entered the police station.

“Don’t tell me you’ve solved the case!” He said with a joking tone as he got up from his desk and with his hand invited me to come to the interrogation room.

Well, I had spent the last three days in that room, where they had shown me all kinds of images, evidence and conjectures about the events, the victim, the suspects… an infinity of data and details with which I expected… I don’t know… overwhelm me.

All with the intention of giving me the greatest facilities so that I would not have any “excuse” when I failed, or at least the police chief had told me so on several occasions.

“Well, I don’t know if it’s anything, but I’ve been sleeping badly for several nights.

“No kidding! That happens to all of us who are dedicated to solving crimes,” he commented as we entered the room and closed the glass door behind him.

“Yeah, well, I guess,” I managed to say, “but tonight was different.”

“On what?” He asked while with a gesture invited me to sit down.

“I, I don’t know how to tell him, but it’s as if all the information had been arranged in my mind and I had seen it as the entire sequence.”

“Congratulations, that happens to all of us, each case we see we have the same experience, that the disconnected data is sorted and… there it is, we see it.”

“Have you seen it too?” I asked, interrupting him.

“See? Of course, it’s the sequence of events.”

“No, I mean the killer.”

“The killer? What are you talking about?”

“What I’m telling you, I was, I don’t know what to call it, remembering… the data in the form of a scene… at first it was strange, because I couldn’t see clearly, it was as if it were night and everything was dark.

“Normal, you were dreaming at night.”

“That has nothing to do with it, I mean the scene, it was all very dark, and I felt, I don’t know, a little dizzy, I think I stood on a small bench because I couldn’t continue, then I threw up, but that didn’t make me feel better. Suddenly sitting there in the park, in that place, I heard a noise behind me. I don’t know what it was and I didn’t want to find out, but I had a strange feeling and panic washed over me.

»Perhaps it was that noise or the strong smell that came from behind, but as I could, I ran towards the entrance of the park, crossing several bushes, and suddenly, and not knowing how or why, I felt something grab me hairs tightly and pulled me until I fell on my back.

»I don’t know if it was because of the fall or why but I couldn’t lift my head off the ground, it’s as if something grabbed me and suddenly I saw him clearly, it was the postman, the one who had come home so many times to bring me a package, The one who made the delivery at 10 in the morning, and who had always been so kind, but now he looked different, I don’t know, his face was disfigured, his eyes were out of their sockets and he did nothing more than tell me to shut up, and that smell was getting so intense and nauseating, until…

“Until what?” Asked the chief of police, who was pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“You’re not going to believe it.”

“Go on, go on, so far I haven’t believed anything, so go on.”

That lascivious comment didn’t surprise me, as I had already gone through the disbelief of many who made fun of what was happening to me, without trying to help me understand it.

“Well, I am still, at that moment, and I don’t know how I saw myself on top of my body, about a meter and a half, and I was able to contemplate the scene from a distance, without feeling any suffering, even though that person was raging with my body.”

“Wait, wait,” he said as the coffee he was drinking spilled over him, staining the table with it. “What are you talking about?”

“Once he was done, he took the body and put it in a bag, I don’t know where he would have got it, but it was quite large, and he carried me like a sack of potatoes.”

“Then he took me to the exit of the park, around the south corner where he had a silver car, well gray, I’m not sure because it was night and only the light from the streetlight broke the darkness.

“He got me in the trunk and was driving quite slowly through the city, and when he was out of the vicinity he pressed the accelerator, and he stayed that way for about three hours until he reached some quays.

“Once there, he headed for a turnoff that said, ‘Danger alligators,’ and kept driving for half an hour, I think. All this next to the swamps.

“Once, in the middle of nowhere, because there was no nearby construction to be seen, he stopped the car, took my body out and threw me out with a bag and everything, closed the car and left.

“I stayed there for a period, for… I don’t know, a few days, and then I left the place, I went up.

“What are you talking about?”

“Of what I saw, I have already commented, of what I have dreamed of.”

“But have you listened to yourself?”

“Yeah right, why?”

“You just accused someone with a first and last name, told me where the crime took place, and how he disposed of the body.”

“Yes, I have.”

“And without a proof?”

“Well that’s not my job.”

The commissioner, without saying a word and still with the coffee spilled on the table, left the room with great shouts.

I stood there motionless without knowing what to do, I understood that I had done the right thing by telling him what I had seen, but I did not understand his reaction.

From the chair I saw how he began to give orders left and right, and how the police from the police station began to move from one side to the other, some literally ran out of the police station, others picked up the phone and all of this I was a immobile spectator.

I could not understand what all the fuss had come to be and if I had to withdraw or wait to continue the interview in that room.

I made the move to get up and go, but the commissioner saw me at this and, returning to the doorway, said in an authoritative voice:

“Don’t move from there.”

I did so, and well, several hours passed, and despite the fact that I looked everywhere as the policemen came and went, all very nervous, surely, due to the shouts of the boss, until at a certain moment I saw entering the police station two of the policemen who had run away, and they were coming with a third man.

“It’s him, it’s him,” I screamed, I don’t really know why.

“Get him out of here,” said the commissioner to one of his subordinates, pointing at me.

So in an instant I found that they had expelled me from the police station, if you can call it that, and without ceasing to guard me, they had kindly invited me to the cafeteria across the street where they had made me sit and wait.

Although I asked several times, the policeman did not want to tell me what he was doing there, or how long he would remain, only that he must be sit and silent.

I don’t even know how long I was there, but I took the opportunity to eat, since I hadn’t had anything to eat when I left so early for the police station to tell the police chief about my dream, so I ate and waited.

It was all so strange, but hey, I had nothing better to do than wait there, I don’t really know what, but the police chief had ordered it that way, and that’s why I had, I don’t know whether to tell him an escort, but on two occasions I asked him to take me out of that place and he didn’t let me go anywhere.

And it was all so strange that even the policeman who was guarding me offered to pay for my food, that was really weird! But I understood that it was a good sign, if I had been a, I don’t know what to tell it, a common prisoner, He would have never made that offer.

Despite this, I thanked him, but I understood that I had to pay for my meal, so I did.

Hours passed, and despite my continual questions to the policeman, he didn’t seem to care about time, he was just there, in front of me, sit, and quiet.

Personally, I think he would have more interesting things to do, but that is what he had been told to do and he did so.

At one point the walkie talkie that he had in his pocket sounded, which I had barely noticed, and the order was clear:

“Bring him.”

“Come on” he said, getting up from the place and not giving me time to finish my coffee.

After three cups, one could have waited a little longer, but he hadn’t, he had received orders and everything now had to be in a hurry.

So we went back to the police station, and they took me back to the glass room that they used as an interrogation room.

“Well, you’ll say,” I commented to the police chief when he entered the room where had remained in a corner that…, I don’t know how to say, guardian who had accompanied me and had not taken his eyes off me.

“How did you know?”

“What?” I asked without knowing what he meant.

“Don’t play dumb, how did you know?” he asked again.

“As long as it’s not more specific, I don’t think I can answer you.”

“We found the body,” he stated as he put some photos on the table.

“Ah, it’s her!” I said as I watched her. It was the first time I saw this kind of photos, it is true that on television they are showing them at all times, either in the news or in the police series, but it is different when you have it right in front of you.

At the moment it made me, I don’t know, a knot in my stomach, a bad body, something entered me that … I couldn’t help but vomit on one side.

“Easy, easy, that happens to everyone the first time,” said the commissioner as he handed me a box of tissues.

“Excuse me, it was the impression.”

“Yes, I still remember my first time, unfortunately for me it was not some photos, but a joke, so to speak, from my fellow colleagues. They thought it would be funny to go to the cemetery at night to show how brave we were, and… at a certain point they threw me into a hole, shallow, but where there was an uncovered coffin. For sure they had prepared everything for the occasion, but the impression of seeing a body from so close, in the cemetery, in the middle of the night, and illuminated with the flashlights that we brought, I assure you that it is quite an experience.”

“I guess,” I managed to say as I wiped my face and hands and threw the paper on the floor to cover up what I had stained.

“Don’t worry, they’ll clean it up shortly, and well, tell me how did you know?”

“What?” I asked again, understanding now that it was about the case that hours ago I had shared my dream of.

“How did you know about where he threw her?”

“I don’t know, I just told you what I saw.”

“It has taken us several hours and the help of various experts to narrow down the area, based on the speed, model and weight of the vehicle.”

“What?” I asked in amazement.

“Sure, how do you think we do things? We don’t leave anything to chance here. Locating the suspect was easy, you gave us his name and his profession, you practically led us to him. Then we searched his house and found nothing, while we looked for his car, and coincidentally he had it in the workshop, for I don’t know what problem with the shock absorbers.”

»We went to the repair shop, with the appropriate court order, and there we realized that the vehicle was not there because of what he had told us, but that he had requested the odometer to be rectified.

»I am not sure what he would mean by this, but that did not make our work more difficult, since the shop had recorded the number of kilometers before carrying out the requested handling.

“We looked carefully at the trunk, and we didn’t find any trace, not the slightest, not a single hair, but hey, we had to try.

“So we focused on where you told us, by speed, direction and distance, and we’ve been combing the area for the last few hours, until we’ve found the body.

“Wow, you are effective,” I commented in amazement.

“We just do our job, but now we have a problem.”

“A problem?” I asked surprised, as he had told me that they had already caught the culprit and that they had recovered the body.

“Yes, we have to prove that it was he and not someone else who threw her into the pond.”

“What about the DNA I’ve seen so many times on television?”

“No DNA, at least that we’ve found.” There is no trace in his house, neither in the vehicle and all we have is the body and the knife, which I already knew when I showed him the evidence in the case, he does not have any fingerprints or DNA of the aggressor.

“And what do you want me to do?” I asked, puzzled.

“We need something, no matter how little, something that helps us catch him, if not, in less than 24 hours we will have to let him loose and that despite having the body.”

“So you believe me? You do think it’s him.”

“Yes, I believe you, I don’t know how you did it, but I believe you. His testimony does not stand, he has been lying to us since we arrested him, and no one is able to determine the day and time of the crime, that is, he has no alibi, but we cannot place him there either.”

“Maybe yes,” I said after briefly remembering the dream.

“How?”

“Do you remember I told you that he had taken the body out of a park gate?”

“Yeah, what about that?”

“Well, the car was parked there, someone must have seen it, and with that they can place it in the vicinity.”

Without saying anything, the policeman left the room and began to shout, just as he would have done a few hours before.

After an hour or so he came back in and said with a big smile.

“We’ve got him!”

“Did anyone see the parked vehicle?”

“Better, there’s a jewelry store nearby, and they have a camera recording the display, since you don’t know what? You can see him removing the body, well the bag, and depositing it in his vehicle.”

“Wow, how lucky to have that camera.”

“Yes, this is enough to prosecute him, as there is evidence to judge him for the crime.”

That was my first contribution to solving a case, the first of so many that I no longer remember the number.

What I did not have time to explain on that occasion or in the successive ones in which I had that type of dream, is what I saw a posteriori. I don’t know why that part no longer interested them, it’s as if the police just wanted to know what had happened to the body, or where the kidnapped person was, but nothing of the rest that I saw.

But for me, that was the most enriching thing, if it can be called that, knowing that, whatever the circumstances of the last moment of life, then you continue living, or at least that is how I had experienced it.

A life outside the body, but not like when we dream, and we think we are flying, something that some call a splitting or a departure of a part of ourselves.

This was something else, it is as if the person were really alive, because they thought and felt, saw and listened, but without a body.

I don’t know why, but what I understood to be the most important thing, hardly anyone paid attention to me when I tried to tell it, arguing that my mission, if it can be called that, or my collaboration had ended from the moment I had given a response to the request, that is, to discover who had been, or where the person kidnaped or their body was.

To tell the truth, after a while collaborating with different authorities, there was not much that surprised me, the names and surnames of those involved did change, and perhaps also the methods, but the motivations, so to speak, did not change.

From there I learned that we are not so different from animals despite what we may think, and that our instincts rule over a good part of our behavior, especially that one which can be considered as deviant.

And, above all, that invisible evil that nobody talks about or wants to talk about, mental health, and its diseases.

I do not know the data, nor the percentage, but most, if not all of those who were involved in this type of act, I do not know how I would define them, but they were not very well.

I don’t know what came first, if those unnatural acts or the mental health problem, what was clear to me is that they were not very normal, and that was evidenced, for example, when they had been caught and tried to… I don’t know how to say it, justify their actions with excuses that were not supported in any way, how would you justify a kidnapping, or a murder?

Personally, I believe that acts like this do not have any kind of justification, no matter how much the other person had done something or stopped doing something before.

I suppose that not everyone sees social norms in the same way, but they are there precisely to protect us from each other, to avoid coexistence problems, and it is something that we all learn from childhood.

It would be useless to buy a vehicle if when someone wants to come and take it because they want to, or, for example, who would go to work, if later the employer can decide not to pay because that day they have made that decision?

The laws and regulations are there for something, and the police to enforce them.

To tell the truth, on more than one occasion I have had problems with the police, not because I did something improper, but because I knew too much and clearly, they thought that I could be the architect, the accomplice or at least the thinking head of that act of the one who gave notice to the police so that, as far as possible, they would do their part to prevent it, because yes, I could say that he had two types of experiences, well, they were the same and with the same content, only that Some were before the act happened and others after.

With the former, it was the most difficult for the police to listen to me, not because they did not want to protect citizens, but because they said that until the act had been done, it was not a crime and therefore it was not their responsibility to do something about.

For me, these were all legal technicalities that did nothing but endanger a person, whose suffering could have been avoided.

But after insisting so much and what I had predicted happened on several occasions, the commissioner made a small trap, well, I don’t know if it can be called that, but it was an intermediate solution between paying attention to me and doing nothing.

Legally, until the crime was committed, they could not intervene, but what they did was open a kind of file with all the information that I provided, they studied it thoroughly and did to find out about the people involved and the place of the events, and once they checked everything, then they did a kind of preventive surveillance, both of the victim and the aggressor, or rather the future victim and the future aggressor, and of course it worked, on more than one occasion they had arrested the… future offender, when he was about to commit the crime, or even at the very moment of committing it, for example when it was a kidnapping.

And well, then it was time to justify the police chief in court, what they were doing in that area at the precise moment they were needed, but hey, he always got out of the situation arguing that they have had an anonymous call advising of it.

Actually, it had not been a call, nor had it been anonymous, but I understand that this way I avoided having to give more explanations of the account.

Well, he had said that he had two kinds of experiences, before and after. The difference between the two is that the first one came to me without looking for it, so to speak, that is, I don’t really know how it works, but it is as if the victim gave a cry and I was able to catch it, but this before it happens.

Despite the fact that I have asked many “specialists”, each one has given me a different explanation, arguing that somehow I had a connection with those people, or that the cry had been captured by an unconscious part connected with I don’t know what flat … well, whatever it was, it seems that this person was looking for me to help her from the future and with my intervention I managed to avoid that suffering.

The other way is for the police to contact me and ask me to participate in a certain investigation.

This is how they taught me all the evidence they had, and they told me all the conjectures and lines of investigation that they had followed and I, without knowing how that same night or in the following nights I dreamed of the case.

At first I thought that they had suggested me with so much data, but I don’t know why it worked, that is, what I was experiencing then was related to the case, and so I could come the next day to provide new information that was sometimes so valuable that managed to close it by catching the culprit.

To tell the truth, I did nothing but dream, sometimes daydreaming, and sometimes in bed.

Although I personally preferred the second, since the first implied an occasion that I was exposed to falls and injuries.

Of course, since I was diagnosed with epilepsy, I have not driven, since I do not know what can happen if I go behind the wheel and have one of those absence seizures as they call them, or worse, an attack.

In order to avoid damaging someone, I had to resign myself to using public transport for my trips, a situation that did not pose any greater inconvenience to me than leaving about half an hour earlier to be able to catch the bus on time.

But what has been said, the police have always been, I don’t know, suspicious of my abilities if it can be called that, in fact, on more than one occasion I have had to make demonstrations when a visit from another police station came requesting police cooperation to solve a case that they had not been able to close.

Be that as it may, I have always tried to cooperate in everything that has been requested of me, since I consider that what I have is not something for me, so, if it can provide a benefit to others, welcome.

I know why at first they accused me of it, those who dedicate themselves to living off the pain of others, saying that they were capable of connecting with the victims to receive this or that message for their relatives, and almost always were words of consolation saying that they were at peace and that the suffering was over.

I understand that these were words of great value for distressed family members, but that they were of little use to the police in determining where the body was.

But hey, I am not going to be the one to judge what others do and why they do it, I only know that I have tried to be very transparent with the authorities, what I received I told them, whether they liked it or not, of course, always with the intention of helping in what I could, although they did not always see it that way.

I remember once when I affirmed that there was no crime, it was about a teenager who had called her parents requesting a ransom and they asked me to try to locate her before they paid, because sometimes after payment, the kidnapper tries to erase the clues to their crime, and even ending up with the person for whom they had just collected the ransom.

This was one of those sought after dreams, in which they had given me as much information as possible about the case, phone numbers, names, and even the follow-up they had made to the closest circle to see if any were involved.

Despite this, I could not capture anything, and it was the first time that happened to me and so a week passed, and every day I approached the police station to report my lack of connection, and they told me if there was something new or not, after which I spent hours reviewing that documentation in search of that connection with the victim, but nothing, the days passed and I had nothing, so one day I went to the police station and with a firm tone I said to the commissioner.

“There is no such abduction.”

“What did you say?”

“Yes, I haven’t seen anything, I don’t see the victim, and it’s the first time this has happened to me. I don’t think she’s kidnapped.”

“But what are you talking about? Have you lost your mind?”

“No, I’m very sure what I’m saying, if the kidnapping had taken place I would have captured something, a connection.”

“You and your things… are you sure that what you say you have still works?”

I thought for a moment, wondering if there could be something wrong with me that would prevent me from continuing to use my powers, but I did not remember that I had done anything different from what I used to do, not a strange food or anything, and I had not had any symptoms to tell me that I could be sick and that would justify not having that connection, so after thinking about it I affirmed:

“It’s not me, it’s the victim, she doesn’t communicate, so I don’t think it’s a kidnapping.”

That day was one of many that the head of the police station threw at me with his words out of tune, seeming to forget all the times that I had collaborated and that my information had been useful, but now it seems that he was upset that I could not solve a single case.

Well, with a very clear conscience I went to my house and stayed there for a few days until the police chief knocked on the door.

That surprised me because normally he called me at the police station when he wanted to tell me something, but hey, there he was, and I didn’t know the reason for his visit.

“Good morning boss, do you want to come in?”

“No, it’s a quick visit, you were right.”

“About what?” I asked without knowing what he meant.

“The girl, the teenager who had been kidnapped, the one who didn’t communicate with you had faked her kidnapping, well, there never was a kidnapping, she went with her boyfriend to Las Vegas and when the money ran out between the two of them they thought to say that she was kidnapped so that her parents could send money for him to continue playing with. And no, don’t tell me you already told me.”

“Not at all, I’m glad the case was solved.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said as he left the door waving goodbye.

I don’t know how many times he had to agree with me and admit that my abilities were fine, but that was the first, and that’s why I won’t forget it.