Short Stories 366:192 — “O Crime, In Thy Flight,” by Eleanor Cawood Jones
[image error]So, to say this particular story from Crime Travel was my cup of tea would be understating, but let me paint you the set-up: after giving birth, Charlotte finds she’s developed an odd ability: when she touches someone’s clothes and thinks about something they lost when they were wearing those clothes, she knows where the missing item is. This kind of psychometry story has me from step one, honestly, and add in the husband who doesn’t like that she’s not “normal” and I’m basically ready to champion Charlotte to the end of time.
Charlotte has kept her ability secret from most everyone else, but poor timing put her in range of a police officer, Sam, and he realized pretty quickly that her awareness of where someone missing was—because in his case it was someone with dementia who’d wandered off—was something that could be used for good. He comes to her with another crime, and she helps him, and a partnership of sorts is formed where she helps out with her gift, remains anonymous, and crimes are solved. Then one day Charlotte needs a hallowe’en costume for her daughter, and she decides they could dress up as pairs, and she tries on an airline hostess outfit and wonders briefly where the original owner of the uniform might be and—bam.
Her gift launches into overdrive, and Charlotte finds herself reliving the past, along for the ride in the body of the woman in the uniform, and witness to murder to boot. This hasn’t happened before, and Charlotte has no idea if she can get back to her own time, assuming she’s not trapped as a silent witness in this person’s body forever. The catch-22 of Charlotte and her husband comes to hit her square in the face: her gifts are growing, and she’s been holding them back and trying not to use them overmuch to keep her husband happy, and now it might have doomed her. By the time everything plays out, I had a lot of hope for Charlotte and her decisions about what she needs to do, and honestly, I’d love to read more shorts with the character.