by Bill Alive
I kept my voice light and nonchalant. “Mark’s right, no good reason.” As I said this, I may have looked away and sunk back into the couch. But since I didn’t immediately start babbling the truth, I feel that this moment was a major victory and a personal milestone.
Gwen frowned. “That’s odd you’d say that, Pete. Because Samson also claims he couldn’t have done it. He says he was with Dr. Kistna at that exact time.”
“Oh really?” Mark said. “That’s his play, that he’s innocent because he was screwing some other woman?”
Flush with confidence, I said, “What’d you say the doctor’s name was?”
Mark rolled his eyes.
“Dr. Kistna,” Gwen said. “The same woman you were watching ‘make out’ at the time of the murder. According to Ceci.”
There was an awkward pause.
“Care to elaborate?” Gwen said.
“Maybe Pete said ‘stakeout’?” Mark said. “I remember Ceci did call.”
“So you were doing a stakeout at her house? Why?”
Mark shrugged. “Honestly, Pete finds her somewhat attractive.”
“Mark!” I shrieked.
“Come on, you took her to that winery!” he said. “Then he left the headlights on and she had to jump-start the car. Because he’d parked her in.”
I buried my face in my hands. I know that sounds dramatic, but for one thing, I blush like a boss.
“There are laws about stalking, gentlemen,” Gwen said coldly.
“At least we’re not using her as a murder alibi,” Mark said. He glanced at the sidekick, then did an actual double take of surprise. “An alibi Dr. Kistna totally denies, right? Denies they were even still dating?”
The sidekick’s eyes went wide with dismay. Gwen snapped her gaze between him and Mark, and a new look entered her eyes. Mainly anger. Like if she had to wind up believing in this empathy shit, she was going to be pissed.
Mark grinned. “No worries, Gwen. Just a lucky guess, right? I mean, who wants to admit they were in bed with some murdered woman’s husband?”
Another silence. The sidekick was fidgeting.
Mark looked his way and said, “Hey, if you’re that worried you left the headlights on, just go check.”
“Yeah, I’ll be right back,” he said.
He hopped up and hustled out the door, apparently oblivious that his mind had just been read in public. But Gwen’s eyes finally went wide, and even I was a little creeped out.
“It’s funny,” Mark said to Gwen, “I don’t know why, but that guy and I really have a super clear connection. Maybe cause he’s focusing on me so much. That guy can focus.”
“For your information, Officer Oxley is completely heterosexual,” Gwen barked. “Ostentatiously heterosexual.”
“Maybe he’s overcompensating!” I said.
“No he is not,” Gwen said.
“Of course he’s straight,” Mark said.
“But you said—” I started.
“I was just giving him a hard time,” Mark said. “He’s not gay, he’s OCD. He just obsesses about being gay.”
“What are you talking about?” Gwen said.
“That’s actually a specific, clinical variation of OCD,” Mark said. “Obsessing over whether you might be gay.”
“That’s a thing?” I said. “How do you treat that?”
He grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”
“Are you sure, dude?” I said. “That sounds kind of homophobic.”
“No, it’s just actual OCD. Some OCD gays obsess that they might be straight.”
“Whoa,” I said. “My head is exploding.”
“Mr. Falcon,” Gwen said icily. “I know you’re desperate to prove you’re some kind of psychic—”
“Empath, not psychic,” he said. “I can feel very specific shades of discomfort. But even you must have noticed something about our friend Oxley. When’s the last time he frisked a dude?”
“Officer Oxley is always…” Gwen began, but she was obviously mentally checking, and she faltered. “…it’s not like frisking is an everyday requirement in Back Mosby. I’m sure if I thought about it—”
“Any other OCD tendencies? Say, double checking that the headlights are off? What about reports, does he take forever to file reports? Keep rechecking everything?”
Gwen looked startled again, then said sternly, “We’re not here to talk about Officer Oxley.”
“Come on, Gwen!” he said. “What do I have to do to convince you? Read your mind? Oh wait, already did that.”
“One lucky guess! When you already knew my personal history—”
“I did not, no one had told me anything!”
“And you’re not telling me anything,” Gwen snapped. “Chief Goff has only been tolerating your shenanigans on the condition that you report everything you find!”
Mark blinked. “Did you actually just say ‘shenanigans’?”
Gwen’s jaw tightened. “Mr. Falcon—”
“We told you about the text and the photo! Aren’t you going to get a warrant and check Lindsay’s cloud accounts?”
“This is Brown County, not the NSA,” she said. “I need all the information I can get from you to move quickly, and I want to know what you saw Dr. Kistna doing last night.”
Mark looked prim. “I don’t know if it’s appropriate to get into details with a good Christian girl.”
“So you did see her making out.”
“I didn’t say that. I just said it wasn’t appropriate to get into details.”
“You must have seen something or you would simply tell me you didn’t.”
“You don’t know that, I could be bluffing,” he said. “Maybe it’s a little embarrassing that at the exact time someone was getting murdered, we were staking out some hot suspect. Okay?”
Gwen folded her arms and scrutinized us both.
“Mr. Falcon,” she said quietly, “You do not want to bluff me. This is now officially a murder investigation. And that means murder suspects.”
A chill iced across my chest.
But Mark smirked. “So you’re saying we have a right to remain silent?”
Gwen’s dark eyes blazed. Then she said, “This interview is over.”
She stood and strode for the door. She grabbed the handle, then fired a parting shot. “You are an unlicensed, untrained, interfering amateur, and you’re going to get somebody killed. If you haven’t already.”
“Oh, and would that be because there actually is a a murderer after all? Like I said from the start?”
“Mr. Falcon, I don’t know whether you’re delusional or a fraud or both, but either way, you’re on a collision course with some serious pain.”
She turned and pulled the door. It would have been a great exit, except the door stuck.
She tugged furiously, and yanked it open on the second try. “Oxley!” she barked. “Where the hell have you been?”
Officer Oxley fumbled up from the open door of the cop car. “Sorry,” he said. “Got distracted, the car’s really a mess. I didn’t realize I left so many crumbs with that muffin—”
“It’s fine!” Gwen barked. She stormed out to the car and they growled away.
Mark and I had followed her out, and we stood on the chilly porch in our bare feet. Mark frowned as he watched the dust cloud dissipate.
“I shouldn’t have teased that guy,” he said. “OCD sucks.”
“Why’d you lie to Gwen about Fidelio?” I said. “Isn’t that like a felony?”
He sighed. “I didn’t lie.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “I’m sure Gwen’s totally cool with mental, um—”
“Don’t,” he said. “Look, last night Dr. Kistna was making out with Samson, a man who’d just married into millions. This morning, she’s lying to get him arrested for murder. Possibly executed. Don’t you think that warrants a conversation?”
“But shouldn’t Gwen do that?”
“Did you not even see what just happened
? She got mad and stormed off! She’s even worse at interrogating than I thought. I didn’t even have to lie. Besides, we’re the only ones who know Samson’s real alibi. That gives us major leverage. As long as he’s scared, he’ll tell us everything he knows. There’s plenty of time to fill the cops in later.”
“How? You can’t tell them later, what if by then we really are suspects? Besides, it’ll mean you lied now! Gwen hates when people lie.”
“I didn’t lie!”
“Mark, seriously, we could go to jail. It was different before, the cops weren’t sure there had been a murder. Now they’ll be out for blood. Why don’t we just … I mean …”
Mark snapped me a fierce glare. “Do what? Crawl back to our respective crap jobs? Spend another ten years in hiding?”
I frowned. “Ten years ago, I was, like, twelve.”
He scoffed, pulled out his phone, and started a call.
“Who are you calling?” I said.
“Dr. Kistna,” he said. “Who else?”
I groaned, and wondered how long Vivian would hold my job if I wound up in prison.
Chapter 31
But Jivanta had changed her mind about more than Fidelio.
“No no, I promise to come myself this time,” Mark was telling her. “The cute one.”
“Not cool,” I said.
Mark smirked. Then he held the phone away from his ear as Jivanta squawked a torrent of vituperation in her gorgeous accent. He put her on speakerphone.
“…nothing to say to a couple of rank hobbyists, and if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll get you on harassment.”
“I really think you ought to talk to us, Dr. Kistna,” Mark said pleasantly. “Otherwise a couple of rank hobbyists might have to report how they know that you’re lying about last night.”
She hung up.
“Huh,” Mark said. “That was ominous.”
“Maybe the call dropped,” I said nervously. “Maybe she’ll call back.”
“Oh yeah,” Mark said. “That kind of girl always calls back. For sure.”
“Are you going to call her back?”
“No. First we try the easy way. Computers.”
He went inside, woke up his computer system, and opened a chat window to the Alpha Geek, Zack Jabulani.
He tried to explain about Lindsay’s text, but he didn’t get far before Zack made him install some whole other software to make the conversation anonymous and “encrypted”, so it couldn’t be traced or intercepted. This took forever, because Zack also insisted on going over this super intricate configuration.
When it was finally all set up, Mark explained how we needed him and the Linux guys to try to guess the password for Lindsay’s online accounts.
you kidding? Zack chatted. very very illegal.
It’s a gray area, Mark chatted.
“Is it really?” I said.
“It is for me,” Mark said. “I have no idea what the laws are.”
Zack pasted back a whole stream of links to court cases and analysis that he expected us to drop everything and read. But Mark kept wheedling, emphasizing that since we already knew the password sounded similar to “never fish again,” it couldn’t be that hard to crack, and it could mean catching a murderer.
At last, Zack agreed to get his crew to at least try.
but it could take awhile, he chatted. and NO PROMISES.
awesome, Mark chatted. just make sure no one chokes you.
oh right, Zack chatted. you too.
“They already did,” Mark muttered. He turned to me. “Now for our friend Fidelio.”
“I thought he was in custody,” I said. “Doesn’t that mean he’s already in jail?”
“Yeah,” he said. He frowned. “I think so. It’s been awhile. They can’t keep him there forever, though, not before the trial.”
“Really?” I said. “On TV, once you get arrested, that’s it, you’re in a jumpsuit behind glass.”
“What I want to know is, how did they even get a warrant so fast?” He sighed and swiveled back to his screens. “More junk to look up.”
It turned out that in Virginia, the police only need a warrant for misdemeanors. For a felony, “probable cause” is plenty for an arrest. And murder is pretty much the Ultimate Felony.
Once you’re arrested, though, you don’t necessarily have to stay in jail. If you can pay the “bail”, you go free until your court date. If you show up and you’re cleared, you get the bail back. But if you don’t show up, the state happily keeps the bail (and issues another warrant for your arrest).
Small crimes have small bails, some with standard set prices. But for murder, the judge can set a bail that’s crazy high, or even refuse you a bail altogether. Which kind of seems like jail without conviction, but then, we are talking about murder.
“Check this out,” Mark said. “Unless there’s a standard bail price, you can’t get out until you actually meet with a judge to set the bail. But the judges don’t work on the weekend!”
“So Fidelio won’t get out until Monday at the earliest,” I said.
“Exactly. And that’s assuming the judge even sets a bail. Which, for this, might run to fifty thousand bucks. Or more.”
“But Fidelio has millions!”
“Maybe,” Mark said. “He and Sibyl might not have actually gotten much yet. Or they might have blown whatever they got.”
“So what do we do?” I said. “If he gets stuck in jail, the cops won’t let us get within a mile.”
He twinkled. “Who says they have to let us?”
“Mark, no,” I said. “I don’t even know what you’re thinking, but whatever it is—”
“Relax,” he said. “Easy way first. I’ll call him Monday afternoon, see if he picks up.”
Fortunately for all of us, he did. I was at work when Mark made the call, but as soon as I got home, Mark rushed me into Thunder and we roared over to the mansion. As planned, Mark had told Fidelio we believed his alibi with Jivanta, but he hadn’t said why.
As we drove up, the mansion seemed desolate and grim. I tried to remind myself that this was likely my imagination, that I was only feeling that way because one of the owners had recently been strangled to death in her bedroom. Oddly, this didn’t help.
As we walked up the porch steps, I tried to sound nonchalant. “I’m impressed he had enough in savings to cover the bail.”
“He didn’t,” Mark said. “He got one of those bail bonds. They make you pay ten percent, non-refundable, and loan you the rest.”
“Yikes. Ten percent of a murder bail could still be thousands of dollars.”
“The pink sports car is gone,” Mark noted. “That was quick.”
The door opened. It was hard to believe this was the same dude who’d thrust beers in our face only last week or so. His beefy grin had sagged, his spiky gelled hair had gone rogue, and his eyes were bruised with insomnia.
Mark scrutinized him, then said with surprise, “Man, you really like that doctor.”
“Like? Like?” Fidelio barked. “I thought she was the one!”
“Dude!” I said. “You just got arrested for murdering your wife, and you’re worried about your new girlfriend?”
“She’s not new! We’ve been together for over a year! I can’t believe she would set me up!”
Mark blinked. “Even though she was apparently fine with you servicing an older woman to get access to her fortune?”
“That was Jivanta’s idea!”
I don’t know if we actually gasped, but Fidelio kept talking in a rush of self-defense. “You don’t understand, Jivanta’s medical school debt is insane, it’s like three hundred thousand dollars.”
Now I did gasp.
“Lindsay was her patient,” Mark said slowly. “That’s why you tried to get Lindsay first.”
Fidelio nodded miserably. “Lindsay was a sweetheart, but totally not into me. Sibyl, though … yeah.” His eyes clouded.
“So why were you sleeping over with Lindsay the ni
ght before she died?”
“I wasn’t sleeping over, and nothing ever happened with me and Lindsay!” Fidelio snapped. “We were just talking. Because I’m actually not one-hundred percent asshole, and the whole Sibyl thing was taking its toll.”
Mark arched an eyebrow. “You mean you needed a heart-to-heart about your marriage issues with your fake wife, so you went and talked to her sister?”
Fidelio groaned. “I told you, Lindsay was a sweetheart! I didn’t have anyone else who would understand!”
“You expected sympathy?”
“Yes! She knew Sibyl, what she’s like. And she knew about being broke, about tough choices … she left her husband, you know. So her kid could be set. For life. Damn it … I know it sucked, but I was really good to Sibyl, I could have been a royal bastard. And for what? Jivanta and I came this close to all that money, we could have been set.”
“What do you mean ‘close’?” Mark said. “Unless Sibyl had an excellent prenup, you just inherited millions of dollars.”
“Not if I fry for murder!” Fidelio said. “And her asshole father’s already promised to sue me for every penny.”
Mark perked up. “Really? He is lawyer happy.”
“He just called,” Fidelio groaned. “Says whether or not I go down for murder, no judge is going to believe that a wealthy old woman who wrote one son-in-law out of her will would want her whole fortune going to a loser who was only married to her daughter for a month. Before he possibly killed her.”
“He’s got a point,” I said.
Mark shrugged. “I expect you’ll be able to scrounge up a decent lawyer.”
“Who cares?” Fidelio snapped. He held his head in his hands and leaned his bulky frame weakly against the doorway.
Mark frowned. “Are you really that into Dr. Kistna? I know she’s hot and everything … just ask Pete…”
Fidelio gave a bitter chuckle. “Yeah, she told me about that stupid winery. I know she’s a doctor, man, but she hates those posers. She’s a beer girl.”
I squirmed. “Do we have to do this?”
Mark twinkled. “Beer, not wine. Write it down, Pete. Sounds like she’s available.”
Fidelio moaned.
“Come on,” Mark said. “Really? You guys were so deeply in love that you decided the smart play was for one of you to pretend marry a junkie heiress? You could just slip away every night as soon as you got Sibyl drunk and stoned?”
