"Look Inside"

I was supposed investigate the case of a young woman, let's call her "Jenny," who was 17 years old and driving to high school early one chilly morning. A rare winter Seattle sun was just rising. Seated beside Jennifer was her boyfriend, Jason, also a pseudoym, also 17. They commuted to school together this way every day.

As they entered an intersection, they headed straight through because they had the green light. Meantime, a man in an F-250 pick-up, blinded by the rising sun, failed to see Jenny's car yield as he was turning fast on a yellow. The pick-up collided head-on with the tiny Toyota Corrola. Jenny was killed instantly. Her boyfriend, Jason, survived, was in a coma with brain damage and many broken bones and internal complications.

Jason's parents got an attorney immediately because he would need a lifetime of medical care which is more money than any health insurance policy would cover. Their attorney would go after the insurance limits on the car that hit them. There would also be funds in Jenny's policy as well.

Jenny's parents hired a separate attorney for Jenny, because they felt the driver of the pick-up should pay -- both figuratively and literally -- for the death of their daughter. I was hired by the attorney representing Jenny, the dead girl, to go to the collision yard and photograph Jenny's car.

The car was in one of those places I call auto graveyards... cemeteries of cars, trucks and any other vehicles on wheels...
charred, ripped, crushed, jagged metal remnants of devastating accidents past.
The vehicles in the graveyard were totaled out.... stacked side by side in horizontal rows, layers deep with pathways between them, along a windy dusty dirt road that goes on for acres.

In some of these lots, the big ones, they bring the car to a viewing area for the investigator to photograph and examine.
I was one in one of biggest lots, where the car would normally be brought to me.
But on the day I was investigating Jenny's accident, I arrived when the guys who normally towed the car were having lunch or were somewhere else, so they let me drive to Jenny's car which was several turns around the six acre site. I had the requisite plate number, color, make, I.D. and releases from the attorney and their client family, so they cut me loose on their lot.

I drove my black Jeep at a snail's pace down the dusty curved road past hundreds of cars that took on life forms in their death states.

There were burnt out, bent black shells of metal that were once cars, SUV's, trucks or buses. I drove past twisted smashed front ends, cars cut in half. Some were covered with evidence tape, other just sat empty, lonely and lost. Some had roofs crushed to the floor. I had never been a yard like this one, one this big and so full of exposed unburied remains. It was a graveyard with no holes in the ground and no coffins. Raw. Exposed. Car Body Farm.

I found Jenny's car. Its rear-end was facing me.
I backed my Jeep up so the front on my car faced the rear of Jenny's.
Since the hit came head on, there was no damage to the car's rear. I grabbed my camera and approached the rear end of the car.
I stopped first for a full shot.
Then moved in tighter.
Then tighter still, until my camera focused in on the plate; then, the little Grateful Dead bear rainbow sticker in the bottom left of the rear hatchback window. I quickly looked at the rear back window of the hatchback, it was tinted. I looked at the lock and do not recall seeing a key in it at tht time.

I moved around the left side of the vehicle, where Jenny, our dead client was positioned. My first task was the exterior, as my camera clicked , so did the thoughts in my head.
No airbag deployment. It was an older model car, they were not mandated then.
Jenny's side sustained the greatest impact, its front end was pushed right up to her seat.
The engine was just about kissing the passenger compartment.

Jason's side was crushed, though not as bad as Jenny's.

I could see why Jenny was killed instantly.

I could not see how Jason survived. I could see, however, that survival came at a huge price.
There was intact area of steel around his head, the side window was unbroken. The head injury came when he bouced up and hit the roof.
Beside his brain bleed and coma, he had multiple broken bokens on his entire left side... from ankle, to hip, to elbow, to shoulder. His spleen ruptured. One lung was punctured. And his girlfriend was dead.

I photographed the car from all the requisite angles.
Then it was time to look inside.
That's when my limited view of the universe shifted exponentially.

First I looked at Jenny's seat.
It was empty... broken backwards... the seat littered with shattered shards of glass from the windshield. Police tape was all around the car exterior, it secured the vehicle as evidence. Jenny's left driver's side window was smashed out. Her door was off its hinges and
leaned vertically against the car, with just enough room to slip my camera and my head in a to take it all in.

A bent, steering wheel.
Blood and brain matter everywhere.
On the dashboard.
On the seat. On the ceiling.
I photographed the odometer through blood.
There was an odor of death still fresh I could ot capture with my camera.
When I finished with Jenny's side of the car, my mind and camera turned to Jason's passenger seat.

Jason was not my client, however, he was was our dead client's beloved boyfriend. He was still alive. And on his passenger front seat, was a big, cardboard box that filled the seat and reached almost halfway up the closed passenger side windown. There was yellow police tape on the box too.

I'd seen those boxes before. In other collision yards and in evidence rooms.
I knew in the chaos of triage on accident scenes, paramedics and police gather up all kinds of items they find on the scene like personal items and medical discards/debris, then put them in a cardboard box. Often there are bloody remnants of materials paramedics use to save lives, or cut up clothing in the box. This box on Jason's seat in Jenny's car was sealed tight by the police tape and I wasn't going to touch it.

As I was looking at that box, that's when I first heard it.
It was a voice. A girl's voice. No... a teenager's.
It's said, "Look Inside."

I stepped away from the car and looked around.
It was lunchtime in the car graveyard, there was no one there but me and hundreds of dead, mutilated vehicles.
I looked back at Jenny's car, stepped closer to the window on the driver's side, looked at the box and heard the voice again.
It said, "Look inside."

I had encountered "odd" episodes in my life. There have been times when I sensed or knew things others didn't.
It wasn't until I reached adulthood after a lifetime of some accurate intuitions/ premonitions, when I considered the possibility that I was not nuts.
It was the night my father died that I knew for sure, there was a whole lot more I didn't know for sure.
Because I had proof then, actual evidence and witnesses to my knowing/experiencing his passing despite the miles between us.

I have always been rather receptive to.... how you say.... "messages." So I was open to considering the possibility of Jenny's spirit speaking to me.
I stuck my head and camera back in Jenny's window to photograph Jason's half of what was left of the front passenger compartment.
I photographed the box.
The side window.
Then I heard the voice again. It was more insistent.
"Look Inside!"

I spoke back to the voice in my head telepathically, with my thoughts instead of words.
I figured if I spoke out loud, that would be true evidence of my insanity to both myself anyone watching.
I thought, "I can't look inside. It's got evidence tape on it."

"Look INSIDE" the voice repeated. This time, with empasis on the second word.

I stepped away from the car and stood at the side, by the door Jenny would have opened at walked out had she lived. I stared at the vehicle as I pondered my next move.

I decided against opening the box and walked back to my Jeep, climbed up on the hood, balanced my camera on my knees, zoomed in and out of the car with my telephoto, when I heard the voice again.
"Look Inside. Please... look inside." I think it was the "please" that did. I had a visceral response to the pleaI heard in that word.
I climbed off the hood, grabbed my camera and approached the rear end of the car.

The voice in my head said "Good. Look Inside"
I looked at the tinted rear hatchback window on with the Grateful Dead rainbow bear sticker on it.
I stepped towards the area where the key/handle might be.
I recalled doing the same thing when I first arrived. Only this time... this time... something was different.

I saw a key in the lock that I hadn't seen before . This surpise find led me to two conclusions:
A. The key been there before and I overlooked it.
B. The key been put there by otherworldly forces I dared and cared not contemplate.

I went with A. I studied the key before I touched it. I photographed it in the lock. It was not your average car key. It was silver, thin and flat, like a small skelton key. As I reached out to touch it, the trunk just flew open. I hadn't even had a chance to turn the key.

"Good!" the voice said, "Look inside."
I was on autopilot then, I think.
I figured... okay, this is a dead kid speaking to me and what the hey, let's just go with it.
I'll sort it all out later.

I looked inside the tiny little hatchback trunk.
First thing I saw was a platic bag. Not like a supermarket bag, but one of those big clear, thick plastic bags with zippers you get when you buy sheets or a comforter in a store. Inside was something that looked beige, soft, hand knit. I photographed the bag in its original place.
The command continued.

"Look inside."
I unzipped the zipper on the platic bag without moving the entire bag. Inside were soft beige, white and cherry colored hand-knit items: a beautiful hand-knit cashmere hat; mittens and scarf. They appeared to have bever been worn.

The voice said, "Give these to my sister."

I didn't know if Jenny had a sister.
I did believe however, that whoever was talking to me somehow got me to that trunk and to that platic bag, so odds were good something on a higher level was going down here. I continued to go with the flow.

I zipped the bag close. I moved it to the right side of the trunk, because there was something light blue under the bag. It was Jenny's school notebook.

Again the voice, "Look Inside!".
I left the notebook on the floor of the trunk and opened immediately and randomly to Jenny's calendar stuck in the spiral notebook with its three well placed holes.
When I opend the notebook, again to a random page, it opened to the very week I was there.
And when I looked at that very day, the day I was the car trunk, it said, "Mom's birthday. Tell her, love you."

I left the notebook and hatchback open, climbed back up to the hood of my Jeep and contemplated the whole situation.

On the one hand, no one in my investigative world knew I had these little gifts of perception.
On the other hand, if they found out, I could be considered a crack pot and my credibility would be shot.
I was going for the the straight and narrow path of investigation and I wanted to be perceived as a teller of truths, not a flake.

Still, there was evidence to indicate this girl, the poor dead girl was communicating with me. Maybe she did have a sister. Maybe it was her mothers birthday. It had to be. The calendar said so.

Maybe spirits do live on when the body dies. Maybe that's why all the cars in the auto graveyard surrounding me seemed alive... so full of pain, tears, and unaswered questions.

I don't know how long I sat there, contemplating the what nexts, until it occurred to me.
I am Jenny's investigator. Those are her things. And I am getting them to her family even if It means I will lose my job for screwing with police evidence.

Long story now gets short.

I took the bag with the scarf, hat and gloves. I took the notebook. I closed the trunk, looked at and photographed again the mysterious key which still remained in the truck.

I began the drive back to Seattle, to the law firm representing Jenny and while on the road, called my friend, one of those guys who knows everything about anything.

This guy knew I had a gift, he'd seen it in action. So I told him everything that happened, ending with the fact that I had the scarf and notebook with me.
He was mortified.
"You took evidence?"
Yes, I said.
"Police evidence?" he said.
"Yes, " I said again, presenting my defense. "Because it was our client's personal effects and I am hired to represent her and she wanted me to do it."
"But she's DEAD" he said.
I didn't answer him. We sat in slence for a few seconds then he said,
"Man you are soo screwed."

So I called the attorney who hired me and told him everything as I headed to his firm.
I expected I wouldn't be his investigator much longer.
Instead, he was unexpectedly calm, intrigued and then contemplative when I finished my story.
"How interesting, " he said. " She has a younger sister, you know. Two years younger. "

"I know these things happen," he continued, "because I work a lot of death cases.
So, how would you like me to handle this with the family?"

It was a question I was unprepared for. I figured I would drop the goods at the law firm, and be on my way looking for a new employer.

"Well, " I replied, "just tell them your investigator found this at the scene while photographing the vehicle."

The attorney said with a question in his voice, "But their dead daughter talked to you. "

"I know, I countered, "but that's not in keeping with an investigator's image.They'll probably think I'm crazy" I replied.

"I don't know that I agree." the attorney responded, "If I had lost a child and my child spoke to me through someone, I would certainly want to know that, wouldn't you? "

I didn't answer.

"Why don't you think about that while you drive into the firm." he said. "We'll have a meeting here and decide what's best."

During the drive back to the Seattle office, the plastic bag with its sacred contents and the notebook were secured in an evidence bag in the seat next to me. I felt Jenny's presence. The voice was no longer in my head. I drove way too slow as I contemplated what I had just experienced or imagined.

When I got everything to the law office, the attorney I worked for, who owned the firm, said,
"We all reached a decision here and hope you agree. We think the parents should know our investigator had this connection with their child. We're going to call and tell them everything you told us."

"Ok," was all I said, knowing better than to argue with an attorney.

I headed home. It wadn't 30 minutes later my cell rang. It was the attorney who said,
"You may want to pull over for this one."
I did.

He said, "The father and grandfather had gone back to the vehicle looking for the package with the scarf, hat and mitttens. The both said they looked and could not find them. And they both said they saw no key in the trunk.
Jenny was given the knitted items just the day before the accident as a gift from her grandmother who made them.
Jenny 's little sister knew about them and said she wanted a set just like them.
And Jenny's mother told me she felt the presence of God for the first time in her life when she got the Happy Birthday Message from Jenny"

I ended up with all the investigations from that law firm.
When those partners parted, their new associates used my services as well.
Still do.

Lesson learned:

There are so many dimensions of life out there. Just because you can't see them does not mean they are not there.