by Leanne Leeds
I shrugged. “It depends on how far I want to go, really. People scream out mentally, and I just sort of pay attention to it as it flies by. Like with your officer out there and his pancakes. Then, there are times when people try to hide things, and I have to go in there and dig them out. I’m less comfortable doing that, to tell you the truth,” I admitted to the chief. “But if needed, if it gets to that point, I can do it.”
Chief Clutterbuck looked uncomfortable with my confession.
“Anything else you want to know?” I asked.
“You don’t think much of me, do you?” he asked out of nowhere.
I blinked, not sure I’d actually heard the question said out loud. “I’m sorry?”
“You don’t think much of me,” he repeated, and this time I was sure he had actually spoken the words. “I don’t know you very well, and the fact that my daughter is now wrapped up in whatever this psychic hokum stuff is…I’ve given Martin Salvi a wide berth since he came to this town. The man brought money, and he brought jobs, and so I did what I had to do to keep him and his father happy.” His face tightened. “Yes, I knew who his father was. And I wasn’t happy with some decisions I had to make. But I did it to keep this town safe.” Chief Clutterbuck’s face softened. “To keep my daughter safe.”
“I think you did a really good job, Chief Clutterbuck,” I told him sincerely. “Angie was a mess for a lot of reasons, and things with her could’ve gone terrible really fast. It didn’t, because you took care of her.”
Chief Clutterbuck looked down as if embarrassed. “She didn’t mean for anything to happen to that boy, you know.”
“Spike?” I asked. Clutterbuck nodded. “I know. And so does he.”
“Wherever he is, I hope he does, God rest his soul,” the chief murmured.
“I think this is a strange town with a lot of strange things,” I continued leaning forward. “I’ve done some things I didn’t think I would do, to be honest. We can’t change the past. We can only change ourselves in the future once we understand the mistakes we’ve made. I know you’re the type of person who does that.”
He lifted his head up and looked me in the eye. “Psychic impression?”
“Yeah, let’s go with that.”
“Why are you even talking to me?” The man was wearing a red cap over his short-cropped hair, and the red ember of his cigarette glowed to punctuate every sentence he spoke. The smell of tobacco around him was so strong that it was hard for me to breathe. “Shouldn’t you be out looking for the person who shot my brother?” Though Conrad was the elder brother by five years, even dead, he looked ten years younger than this perpetual chimney.
“Could you put that out, please?” I asked, waving a hand in front of my face.
“Maybe you should step back five feet, honey,” Bond shot back.
“I hardly doubt that would be enough,” I muttered.
“Why did you bring a woman here?” Bond asked Chief Clutterbuck.
I swallowed the urge to punch the man in the face.
When we arrived at Bond Noble’s home, he didn’t invite us in. The small house on the working-class side of town was clean and neatly kept but rundown and in obvious disrepair. Windows were taped with duct tape, paint was peeling. Since he stepped out onto the porch to join us on the walkway, I had no way of knowing what it looked like inside.
“Mr. Noble, we just want to go over your story one more time. Sometimes, with a little distance from the trauma of the event, people can remember things they observed or heard that they may not have told us initially,” Chief Clutterbuck explained as he glanced toward Bond’s home.
Bond Noble didn’t look like he’d experienced any trauma. All I picked up from him was a nervous energy that seemed to have nowhere to go.
“I told everything to that other detective yesterday,” Bond waved off the chief’s question. “If you have some specific question, just spit it out. Otherwise, I have to plan for my brother’s funeral.” An image of Conrad Noble’s wife, Prunella, flashed in his mind.
“Oh, are you helping Prunella with the arrangements?” I asked as if she and I were acquainted. We weren’t. “How is she doing? She must be devastated.”
“I don’t care about how that woman is doing,” Bond said, but he looked away from my eyes. “I have to try to figure out how to explain to our parents that Conrad’s been shot. They both have dementia, you know. I don’t even know that they’ll remember. Or how to get them to the funeral.” He threw his cigarette down on the sidewalk, stomped it out, and immediately lit another one up. “So, see, I don’t have time for you. Go, do your job. Isn’t that what we pay taxes for?”
It was over a full day since his brother had been shot, and yet he still hadn’t arranged to give the news to his parents. Something about it struck me as wrong—even if they were both suffering from dementia. It didn’t seem right not to let them know what happened to their eldest son.
“I apologize for bothering you, Mr. Noble. Clearly, you have a lot on your mind, and we don’t want to take up any more of your time,” Chief Clutterbuck said, reaching out and extending his hand. Bond stared at it as if it was some trick, and after more time than was appropriate, shook once. “We’ll keep your brother’s wife informed of our investigation and will call next time if we need to speak with you again.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay, that’s fine,” he said scornfully, turning away—but not before I’d seen relief in his eyes. With the cigarette still dangling between his lips, he took the stairs two at a time and went back into his house. The door shut with a loud slam, and I distinctly heard the click of locks being turned.
“My police instincts say that he’s hiding something,” the chief said as we walked back toward his car.
“He was defensive, I can tell you that,” I responded. “I didn’t dig too deep, but something felt off about him. He was thrilled that we didn’t push any further and left.”
“Not usually the reaction of loved ones looking to catch a murderer.” Chief Clutterbuck opened the passenger door for me and stood back like a gentleman. “In fact, he seemed more annoyed by his brother dying than anything else. Like it was inconveniencing him.”
“You’re good at reading people,” I told the chief as I slid into the car.
“Thank you, Ms. Delphi.” Chief Clutterbuck closed the door and walked around the car to the driver’s seat. After getting in, buckling up, and starting up the engine, he glanced over at me. “Ever been to a crime scene?”
I wisely decided not to answer.
Six
Crime scenes are strange.
Not that I’d been to a lot.
The violence that happened, the energy of the moment? It’s like it hangs in the air.
I could claim this was a psychic thing, but I don’t think it is, really. Knowing what transpired in that room made me see it with suspicious eyes. Unnerved eyes. I felt the significance of it, this place where Conrad Noble’s life came to an abrupt end at the hand of another.
Conrad Noble was breathing, seeing, hearing…right in that chair.
The next minute, he wasn’t.
The chief broke the silence. “Are you getting anything?” Clutterbuck asked me.
“You mean, like, nauseous or something?” I asked, confused.
“No, I mean like psychic impressions,” he responded with a self-righteous glare. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“What are you people doing here?” I jumped, turning to find an outraged blonde woman in a short skirt and thin blouse staring at us with fury in her eyes. Behind her was a door I hadn’t spotted. “No one should be in here! The police said!”
“Ma’am, are you Clarissa Beauregard?” Clutterbuck asked the angry woman as he reached into his back pocket for his badge. “My name is Terrance Clutterbuck. I’m the chief of police. This is Fortuna Delphi, she—”
“You’re the town psychic!” the woman said excitedly. “Are you here to talk to Conrad’s ghost? Did you bring her in to try to
speak to him in the great beyond?” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears, and she blinked hard to hide them. “Can you see him? Is he all right?”
“Ma’am, I’m not the town psychic, and I’m not—”
“You kind of are,” Clutterbuck said with more humor than I felt was appropriate for a crime scene. “You are here as a psychic consultant, so she’s not far off.”
“Is he here? Do you see him?” Clarissa asked me urgently.
I looked around, then shook my head. “No, ma’am, I’m sorry. If his spirit was here, it’s not here anymore.”
“What do you mean? If his spirit was here? They killed him here.” The secretary looked at me sharply. “Where else would his ghost go? Don’t souls have to leave the body at death?” Her eyes widened again. “Is there a door or something that opens for them to walk through?”
Well, her attitude could turn on a dime.
“We’re just here to look at the crime scene, ma’am, and see if there’s anything I can pick up on. That’s all.” I moved toward Conrad Noble’s desk and looked down as Clarissa made her way over to Chief Clutterbuck. She was chattering away about something or another, but I tuned her out to study the papers strewn about the desk. “Has anything been moved off the desk? By the police, or by you, Ms. Beauregard?”
The two stopped talking and turned toward me. Clutterbuck glanced down. “Not that I’m aware of.”
“I have touched nothing,” Clarissa responded. A tiny, itty bitty flicker of contempt crossed her face as she answered. It was enough to surprise me. “The police told me not to touch anything on his desk, and so I didn’t.”
I called up the memory of the picture Pepper had shown me. Though I wasn’t able to see how many papers were beneath Conrad Noble as he lay prone across his desk, I could tell a folder on the right side of his desk was different. Leaning forward, I stared at it—they had moved it for sure. Not only that, there was a distinct gap in the bloodstain pattern. Right where the tag of the folder was—as if something that was no longer there had blocked the spray.
The folder’s label could still be clearly seen through the blood, though.
Someone tagged it Holy Grove Church.
“Was the councilman involved with something going on at Holy Grove?” I asked Clarissa, waving toward the now empty folder. “This folder was right on top.”
She studied me in the midmorning light, and I felt her defensiveness spring into the air. With a purposeful stride she headed toward the desk and looked down at the folder. “Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t know what that was about.” She threw me a glance. “If it was necessary, I imagine Mr. Noble would’ve told me. But since he didn’t, it’s likely nothing. Maybe they were making plans to have someone from the church lead the prayer at the City Council meeting.”
She came up with that guess awfully quickly.
“But, truly, you’re the psychic.” Clarissa gazed at me. “Don’t you know what the folder is about?”
“It definitely jumped out at me as being important.” I smiled. “Since I am psychic and all. That’s why I asked.”
Chief Clutterbuck watched me. His expression was unreadable, and I felt he was taking great pains to seem merely curious. Like he wasn’t genuinely marking the conversation at all—but his eyes bounced back and forth between Clarissa and me.
“I imagine you should ask Reverend Kane,” Clarissa blurted while reaching toward the folder as if to snatch it up.
“Please don’t touch that,” Clutterbuck’s voice stopped her before her hand got halfway to the desk.
“Right, crime scene, sorry about that.” She shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “I don’t want to bother the two of you, and you clearly have work to do. Is there anything else I can do for you?” Internally, Clarissa was screaming at herself to get out of here before she said something stupid.
Clutterbuck opened his mouth to ask her some questions, but I caught his eye and shook my head ever so slightly. “If you could just give us half an hour to ourselves, Miss Beauregard, we would be much appreciative. Ms. Delphi needs quiet to do her thing,” Clutterbuck lied.
“Right, of course. I need to get over to Prunella’s, anyway.” She waved her hands around, palms up. “That poor woman is just a mess, don’t you know. She and Bond both are just shattered over this.” Clarissa turned around and grabbed a tote bag, hitching it over her shoulder. Pointing behind Chief Clutterbuck, he stepped out of the way so she could grab her purse off the visitor’s chair. “Please make sure you hit the lock on the way out.”
“You sensed something?” Clutterbuck asked once we both saw her leave out the front door of the building.
“Well, yes, but I also found something. This folder,” I told him, waving him over. I pointed out the gap in the bloodstain. He agreed it looked as if papers not fully tucked into the folder had covered the tag. “If the police didn’t take the papers in this folder, someone did. And there’s another thing,” I said, pointing to two small empty spaces on the display shelves behind Noble’s office chair. “You see those two spaces where there is no dust? Someone recently moved those two items. Since I don’t have any pictures of the crime scene—”
“Here, I have them,” the chief responded, pulling out a tablet and tapping the screen. “Here we are.”
I stepped beside him and looked down at the exact photos Pepper had shown me on her phone the night before. Behind Conrad Noble’s prone head was a round selenite ball. Next to it was an empty space.
“Looks to me like that crystal ball was there,” Clutterbuck said as he carefully leaned toward the shelf. “This other space looks like it could have been where that bottle was.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at me. “Wait a minute. How long ago did you say that bottle was stolen?”
I felt cold. “Um, I didn’t, but it could have been a while ago, I guess. I didn’t really notice.”
“I actually think you did, and I don’t think you said it was a while ago.” Clutterbuck’s eyes seem to narrow again, so much so it surprised me he could see out of them. “That bottle isn’t really yours, is it?”
“No, it’s my bottle,” I insisted, sugaring the lie with a flavor of truth. “It’s imperative I get it back. It’s really important.”
“So important it may have been taken a while ago. Long enough to have gathered this much dust”—Clutterbuck pointed to the shelf—“and yet you just now realized it was gone after Conrad Noble was shot and killed.” He stepped away from the bookcase and crossed his arms. “Ms. Delphi, am I on the outside of an inside joke here?”
“No, sir.” I blurted the words before I had a chance to even consider them.
He studied me for the length of time it would’ve taken to pull out his handcuffs and arrest me. The silence was interminable, and I shifted nervously on my feet, waiting. But Clutterbuck said nothing.
“Look,” I said finally, a feeling of frustration getting the best of me. “You’re right; there’s more going on here than I can tell you. Some of it, honestly, is for your own protection. You’ve been through things, Chief Clutterbuck, that you don’t even remember you’ve gone through. You know things that you don’t realize you know.”
“Is that so?” His expression was wary.
“It is,” I nodded emphatically. I had hoped my small confession would disarm him just a little, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. Chief Clutterbuck was now downright suspicious of me. And if he was this suspicious of me now, he would likely be even more so later. “There is a part of you that wants to believe me, isn’t there?”
Despite his steady demeanor, he couldn’t cover his surprise at my comment.
“That part of you that wants to believe me? That’s the part of you that remembers who I am, the part that remembers the things you know about me you don’t know you know anymore. If that made any sense.” Despite the instinct I was fighting to provide an explanation more complicated than that, I was afraid he would push me away. I needed him to trust me.
And I needed tha
t bottle.
“There’s been nothing but confusion since you showed up here,” Clutterbuck muttered, mostly under his breath. “And I don’t know whether you’re doing something to me to make me feel like I can trust you, but you’re right—my instinct as a cop says you have an agenda. My instinct is a human being says whatever that agenda is, it’s not a bad thing, and I should help you.”
“So, are you a cop first, or a human being first?” I asked with a half-smile.
He blinked a few times in surprise and stared at me as I waited again for his response. I knew he felt uneasy at the conversation, troubled by his conflicted feelings. But he wasn’t conflicted about the answer he gave me.
“I’m a father first,” Clutterbuck told me.
The two of us spent about an hour going over the office. Other than the missing crystal ball and the missing papers in the Holy Grove Church folder, we found nothing else of note.
Conrad Noble seemed a pretty average guy. He didn’t have an obscene amount of money, but he wasn’t poor. His father had inherited a small amount of money from his father, who’d been a moonshiner. Once prohibition was repealed, Grandfather Noble opened the first bar in Mystic’s End. He then sold it (and the distillery business) for a tidy profit.
Conrad had gone to school for accounting. A whiz with numbers, he’d maintained the small family inheritance with some conservative but well-thought-out investments. The accountant made enough to ensure his family lived a comfortable, if modest, life and that he could pursue a career as a local politician.
“There’s just nothing about Conrad Noble that seems offensive to anybody,” Clutterbuck said with a sigh as he closed Noble’s file cabinet. “He was organized, inoffensive, not rich. Hell, I even knew him to broker compromises on the City Council that got everyone to simmer down. Everyone liked him. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, doesn’t seem like he did drugs. I don’t see any evidence of gambling debts. ”
