He watched as she shifted in her chair to try to ease her discomfort, glancing from the table to him then past to the door of the room.  For just a second he allowed himself to empathise with her.  It could have been the cold metal of the chair or the heat of the lights that was causing the discomfort.  No, he knew that he was the primary source of discomfort for the creature sitting on the other side of the table.  His one second of empathic indulgence passed and he pressed on with his questioning.

"Then what happened?"

With all four hands clasped in her lap, she stayed silent.

"The more you help us, the easier this will be for you," he grumbled.

He strained to hear her as she muttered something, a prayer he reasoned, then she spoke in a loud whisper saying, "That's when I entered the room to find the bodies.  I'd never met them before, they were always gone when I arrived for the ceremonies.  I'd seen their pictures on the wall of the community center but this was the first I'd seen of them in person.  To a Kalgeros death is an important part of our lives and faith.  We know death by natural causes, battle, and even accidents.  Death by murder is familiar too but....."

"Don't stop.  You're facing some serious charges.  You say you did not do it, which I do believe," he lied, " so if you tell me everything you know it might lead us to the real killers and you'd be free.  We need more information to get the right-"

"BUT YOU WON'T!!" she screamed at him, staring right into his eyes with intense fear and anger.  "You won't find the real murderers because 'They' brought this about and 'They' don't want those working for them to be stopped!"

He had to blink twice and open his clenched fist to clear his surprise at her outburst.   "Okay then, let's get that straightened out.  Who are 'They'?  Why do you think we cannot find their people?"

The fear she'd unbottled was starting to work back inward. She twitched in her seat as she glanced at the walls of the room then to the table and over his shoulder again.  Despite her jumpy demeanor she responded, "On the Kalgeros homeworld we have special canyons.  They have a unique mineral composition and rock face so any sounds made in them reverberate for hours but extremely quietly."  She paused for a moment to calm her now twitching hands in a tight ball.  She continued, "We call them the Canyons of the Whispering Echo.  When you speak in the canyons you will hear the echos come back hours later as a whisper.  This is especially disconcerting when there are others in the canyon that you cannot see.  You hear their echos along with your own."  She stopped.

"What does this have to do with the murders?" he demanded in a growl.

Glancing past him to the door then to the table and back she drew a deep breath and looked like she might calm down.  "Imagine if those echos were visual," she said pausing to let him picture that.  She continued, "When I entered the room and saw the bodies I knew they were dead and I knew that bladed weapons did the killing.   I also knew that the person or party that did the killing were skilled in their job as there was no blood anywhere but around the bodies after they fell."

So far, she'd done better than the first couple of detectives who'd arrived on the scene.  He was curious now and asked her, "What does this have to do with echos you can see?"

She answered in a rush, "I suppose they were there to make sure the job was done.  Maybe they were just curious about the results of their influence.  Perhaps they liked death.  Those are just guesses though because that's all I am left with.  That is all 'They' left."

"Who?"  He yelled and slammed his hands on the table.

Startled at the impact of his hands, she jumped in her chair and looked at him.  "In the shadows of the room I saw the echos of... something.  It was just an impression of a shape, the idea of one.  It was just like seeing a whispered echo from someone else having been there long before I arrived.  Only... 'They' were actually still there, moving in that place.  I cannot explain it better than that.  'They' were in the room but I could only see them as a visual echo."  As she spoke the last two sentences her volume increased with each word until she was practically shouting.  When she finished yelling the last word she was standing with a wide eyed terror mirrored in her face, her eyes riveted to a point over his shoulder.  She suddenly scrambled backwards toward the corner of the room and as she did he rose and turned to look behind him.  All he could see was the echo of a shadow.  It was then he realized, too late, that she was never uncomfortable because of him.  She was uncomfortable because of the shadow she kept looking at behind him.  No, he thought, not a shadow but an Echo.

Yes, I know there is an entry for "The Echo" but I am not inclined to go for anything with "The" at the start of the name as EVERY other major race starts with "The".  The "s" shows that there are many, though that just might mean agents, which they'd have to be to survive so long.  Or maybe it is just the one entity working things through many others and because it was alone that is how it's survived.  Who can tell yet?