Soul Of The Ancients

I'm Colorado Sentinel journalist Justin Hawkins and I've been assigned to interview renowned Colorado City police detective Jeremiah "Tex" Davis as he lay dying of cancer in the hospital. I have become greatly dissatisfied with my work over the past couple of years due to the downturn in the newspaper industry and the inept management I have to deal with everyday. I begin to look at these three interviews and the subsequent story as the last in my twenty-year career.

Tex is a legend in our area. There hasn't been a crime that has happened over the last twenty years that he's been a detective that he hasn't been able to solve and usually in a very short order. That's a big deal in a city with over a half a million people in it. Because of this, many of my readers believe Tex to be psychic or that he may work with one.

In the interviews over three days before Tex dies, I learn that he grew up as a single child, raised by his mother. His father had walked out on them before he was born. He proudly told me his mother was a "very remarkable" woman. She had always told him he was destined for great things because he was born with a caul. The only complaint he had was his given name of Jeremiah. He jokingly told me that his mother must have wanted him to be a fighter.

He was married for a short time to his high school sweetheart and soul mate Sara. She died "unexpectantly" of Hodgkin's disease at 21 years old. Soon after this he joined the police force and remarried. They had two daughters together. By December of 1985, his mother had passed away, his daughters were grown and he and his wife had drifted apart in divorce. Tex says he was "lost" while others might say he was having a mid-life crisis. This all changed abruptly on a cold, dark afternoon when a local convenience store was robbed and Tex was caught in the middle of it.

The robbery was my first real story and I referred to it in my award winning articles at the time as the 'Bijou Street Massacre'. A man entered a store on Bijou Street wearing a baseball hat, sunglasses and a trench coat. He proceeded to the magazine rack and began reading "Field & Stream" magazine. As Tex pulled up and parked his squad car the man pulled a machine gun out from under his coat and began shooting at everything that moved, killing three and wounding five. He then threw down his weapon and ran out of the store and past Tex. Tex chased him on foot for several blocks but the gunman vanished into the night.

The story I had of this incident in 1985 was much different than the story that was coming to light interviewing Tex today in 2005. In 1985, Tex just happened on the scene on a break. Today I'm learning there is much, much more to the story.

Once Tex had become more comfortable with me during the second interview the following day, he began confiding in me that he possessed 'powers' that enable him

to know peoples souls and how peoples situation and events in their lives are connected with those of everyone. For example, not only does he know if someone is going to murder someone, he knows it many months or even years in advance. In most cases, before the murderer knows he's capable or even wants to kill. The chilling part of this for me is that he knows how the crime will affect all of society. It's this part of his "powers" that Tex finds very difficult to deal with.

So, what really occurred at the "Bijou Street Massacre" that evening in 1985 is that Tex was casing the convenience store because he knew what was about to happen. He was afraid to confront the crazed killer because he knew what it would mean to his life from then on. His mother had died, he was now a bachelor and his kids didn't like him being around because "dad always knew everything about what we were doing." Therefore, from that day on, the full focus of his gift would now have to be trained solely on his job as a police officer utilizing his "powers" for good full time. This really scared Tex.