by Dale Mayer
He shrugged. “We were there for hours.”
“So when and where was this party?”
“At the dorms.” He named the student residence building, where Paula’s body had been found.
“So this party just went from room to room?”
He sneered again. “It covered a bunch of rooms, a bunch of floors. A really good time was had by all.”
“Drugs, sex, booze?”
He nodded. “All of the above. That’s what university life is all about, isn’t it?”
“A lot of kids try to go to class.”
“Sure, but, when classes are over, a whole new experience happens.” He chuckled, looking smug.
“For some people, yes,” she said.
“For me, I don’t have to worry about grades. I don’t need to study, like these other suckers.”
“So who are these other suckers?”
“Paula and the others.” He waved his hand. “Not a one of them can hold a candle to my brains.”
“Too bad they apparently can’t hold a candle to your personality either.”
“Exactly,” he said complacently. “They hang around me because they want to be like me.” He grinned. “That it will never happen isn’t the point. In the meantime, we have a little fun, while we go through our years at the university, that’s all. A good time was had by all, so what’s your problem with it?”
“When did you last see Paula?”
“She was at the party last night. I already told you.”
“What time was the party?”
“We went up there about eight o’clock, and I think we were there most of the night. I don’t remember a whole lot after four in the morning.”
“And what happened at four in the morning?”
“I think I probably collapsed in my bed.” He chuckled.
“Anybody see you?”
“I’m sure they did, anybody who was at the party, at least.”
“And who did you go with?”
“My buddies. You know? The same ones you hassled over that stupid car accident.”
Kate said, “Please state their names.”
He quickly named the other three men in the group.
“And when you saw Paula the last time, how was she?”
“She and Candy were having a hell of a fight,” he said gleefully.
“Over what?”
“Over me. I walked away from both of them and found somebody else to have a good time with.” He chuckled at the thought. “They can fight all they want, but I still make my own decisions.”
“Of course you do. Pay your own bills, do you?”
He laughed. “Just because you’re broke and have to live on a stupid cop salary doesn’t mean I have to live the same way.”
“That’s got nothing to do with it. But, with that attitude of yours, it will be interesting retelling the tale.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said in that lazy voice that she really hated.
“So, when you last saw Paula, she was doing fine, just arguing with Candy?”
“Yep, and, man, when those two go at it, they can fight. Really they were much better off when they had sex instead.”
At that, Kate stopped, looked at him. “The two of them were in a relationship?”
“If it wasn’t the three of us, yes. It happens all the time there, chickie.”
“You may call me Detective Morgan. And is that the relationship you had with both of them?”
“I just said that.”
“Not necessarily. Were you not in a relationship with Candy?”
“Sure I was. I was also in a relationship with Paula. I went with whoever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and sometimes I wanted them both.” Now he was balancing on just the back two legs of his chair.
“I see, and they were happy to do that?”
“No, they didn’t want to be in bed together, which made it a lot more fun for me. If they wouldn’t play nice, I told them to get the hell out. I don’t have to take shit like that.”
“What shit like that?”
“Chicks only pretending to have fun. Tons of them are out there. I don’t need any spoilsports.”
The complacency of this guy just blew her away. “I see, and how is it that you don’t remember what happened afterward?”
“Because I was with some other chick,” he said.
“And what was her name?”
“I don’t know. She was somewhere around 36DD, as I recall.”
“Wow. I see that your brains are shrinking as you age too.”
“No need to insult my client,” his lawyer said testily.
She gave him a lazy smile. “No, apparently there’s enough money to keep even you happy though, huh?”
“Again, no need for insults. We’re here, cooperating.”
“Yes, you are, to a certain extent.” She turned toward Brandon. “Did you see either of those young women again afterward?”
He shook his head. “Like I said, I don’t remember a whole lot.”
“So you might have.”
“Yeah, sure. I might have. I was only with that chick for a while. I mean, we had a good bang, and that was it. Then later on they came back for another toke and another drink, but I don’t remember if they were still fighting then or not.”
“They?”
“Candy and Paula.”
“But you saw them again?”
“Yeah, I saw them again,” he said, with another wave of his hand. “What the hell is the big deal anyway?”
“Considering that you were the last one to see Paula alive,” she said, with emphasis, “I think it’s a big deal.”
He stopped and stared at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You heard me. Paula was found deceased early this morning.”
“Probably choked on her own vomit,” he said in disgust.
“Meaning that she was intoxicated last night.”
“Did you hear me?” He came down hard on his chair legs. “We were all intoxicated.”
“You were for sure, but did you see Paula drinking?”
“Of course. They always drank. It was a steady thing between them.”
“Between who?”
“Have you been listening? Between Paula and Candy. Honestly, I think they both really cared for each other, but the whole situation made them pretty ugly.”
“You mean, the situation with you?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, they didn’t seem to like being caught up in the middle.”
“Why would they? It sounds like you were just pulling a power play.”
“Sure, it’s fun to manipulate people.” He yawned, then looked over at his lawyer. “Can we leave now? I really need to catch some sleep.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “Do you have a job to go to?”
“No, don’t need to.” He looked back at her, with that same irritating lazy smile. “Independently wealthy.”
“You mean, your family is.”
“Same thing in my world. My family sticks together.”
“Even when you’re in trouble?”
He glared at her. “Particularly if I’m in trouble.”
She smiled over at the lawyer. “Is that right?”
“His family has always been very supportive,” the lawyer said stiffly.
“Right.” She looked back at Brandon. “And when did you last see Candy?”
He looked over at his lawyer, back at her, and rolled his eyes. “You really don’t listen, do you?”
“I’m waiting,” she said.
“Somewhere around the same time.”
“And about what time was that?”
“I would say maybe about three or four o’clock this morning,” Brandon said. “I can’t believe Paula is dead. What a son of a bitch.”
“Son of a bitch?”
“Yeah. Paula.”
“Okay, that turn of phrase usually refers to men. And Paula’s mother had been clear that Paula was a fe
male.”
“Paula was a transvestite. That’s why it was fun to have him around. He made me look good, but, when I really needed to fuck somebody, it would be Candy. Sometimes.” Then he smirked again, topped off by a laugh. “If you could only see the look on your face, Detective. You didn’t know, did you?”
“The autopsy isn’t back yet.” She stared at him. “So how would I? Was he transitioning to a she, or was she transferring to a he? Or are you making up the whole thing?”
“I don’t think he was transitioning at all.” He laughed, enjoying this whole tale. “I think he just liked to play the part.”
“So, he was a cross-dresser then? Do you think that had anything to do with him getting killed?”
“A lot of guys expect to see something under the hood, and, when you present them with something completely different, I don’t imagine it makes them very happy.”
“And yet that was part of the relationship between her and Candy?”
“Yeah, but Candy really didn’t like multiples at the same time. I told her that it was no big deal and that she should just take it and swallow it, like a good girl. Other than that, she would cry every once in a while, which got really damn irritating.”
“Really? So tell me about the case on campus here of someone you guys threw down the stairs?”
He glared at her. “That’s just bullshit. I had a talk with that girl, and she changed her tune pretty damn fast.”
“Threatening a witness is a crime in and of itself,” she said.
“I didn’t have to threaten her. She saw me coming and just bawled her eyes out.”
“Maybe that’s because you had already helped her down the stairs in the first place.”
“I didn’t help her at all. We just laughed and kept on going. It’s not our fault she went tumbling down the stairs, ass over teakettle. She was the clumsy idiot. We didn’t even have to help her.”
The lawyer studied the cocky young man, as if he were something beyond recognition, but, when he caught Kate looking at him, his poker face immediately returned.
“There have been a couple other complaints about you and your little posse on campus.”
“Whatever.” He shrugged. “This is a boring place to put my time in, until we get out in the real world.”
“What is it you plan on doing when you get out in that real world?” she asked.
“I’ll be a lawyer,” he said casually. “Everybody in my family becomes a lawyer.”
“Great, so they’re all here to help you stay out of jail, huh?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled smugly.
“So you think you can do anything and just get away with it?”
“Sure, why not?” he said. “It’s not like I’ve been caught for anything yet.” At that, he laughed. “Of course I haven’t done anything serious, just stupid childish pranks. Right?” He looked over at his lawyer.
The lawyer immediately nodded. “That’s correct. My client is high-spirited and doesn’t always make the best decisions, but that, in itself, is not a criminal act.”
“We need to confirm things with your buddies. Please stay here for now.”
She stood, about to exit. “Should you pull out your phone and send a text, make a phone call, or communicate by any means, in an attempt to warn your friends, we will take the device as evidence, and you will forfeit your phone.”
“You can’t take my fucking phone,” he said.
She smiled. “If you try to collude with your friends to align your stories, that is also a criminal act.” She focused on the lawyer. “It’s up to you to try to keep him on the straight and narrow.” As soon as she went out the door, she heard the lawyer talking to him.
She didn’t know what kind of lawyer would want to be on this family’s payroll if the whole group of them were lawyers. She shook her head at Rodney.
“I’ll go make some phone calls,” he said.
“I’ll stand in the observation room and see what the idiot does.”
“We probably should have taken his phone away from him in the first place,” Rodney said.
“We should have, but he wouldn’t have handed it over easily. And we didn’t have legal cause.”
“No, he wouldn’t have given it up. All you can do is hope that he texts his buddies.”
“Even if he does, we’ll have a hard time proving it was anything other than stupid childish talk, like his previous tale.”
“Do you believe his story?”
“Parts of it. As you know, the best liars always weave in a little truth. That whole transvestite mess was BS, just trying to divert our attention, I’m sure. I already talked to Paula’s mother.”
“What a jerk,” Rodney said.
“I know, right?” she said. “Is he stupid enough? Yes? But is he also smart enough, laughing at us for this whole thing? Yes. I really don’t like his attitude. I don’t like the lawyer either.”
“I feel sorry for the lawyer.” Rodney dialed a number on his phone. “Must be a royal pain dealing with guys like this all the time.”
“If the family is full of lawyers, why do they need him anyway?” she asked.
“Oh, because they’re not criminal lawyers. They’re all corporate.”
“Interesting. So they’re all about business deals, right?”
He nodded. As soon as somebody came on to the call, he took a few steps away from her. She looked back to see the others in the interrogation room. The lawyer and Brandon were arguing over possession of the phone. She smiled when the phone flew out of his hand and came toward the door. He bolted to his feet, but she quickly opened the door, picked up the phone. “I’ll take that off your hands for now.”
“You can’t touch that.”
“I wouldn’t be able to, except that, right here, on your screen, is a text to your buddy saying …”
“I didn’t get a chance to send it.”
“I see that.” With her own phone, she took a picture of it. “And now I’ll get a warrant for your phone and your laptop and everything else in your room.” She waved his phone before his face. “I’ll be back in a moment.” And, with that, she walked out again. She immediately called the local prosecutor. “I need a warrant.” When she explained the situation, he whistled. “An arrogant smart-ass of a kid, huh?”
“Yep.”
“So he was really trying to set up a story?”
“Trying to shut them up at least, but he didn’t get a chance to send it. That’ll make it dicey. And apparently he comes from a family of corporate lawyers.”
“He’ll get off with just a rap on his knuckles. You know that, right?”
“Not if we get him for murder.”
“Is this about murder?” he asked in surprise.
“According to the one woman who had gone missing but just died in an intersection, the answer to that question is yes.”
“You lost me there,” he said.
“Somebody they hassled earlier may have died, after they went a little too far.”
“May have?”
“Yeah,” she said sadly. “Until I can get a chance to get deeper into this whole mess, it’s a maybe. A warrant would help a hell of a lot. The witness is now dead.”
“I don’t know if I can get that far,” he said. “Nothing you’ve given me is enough to get what you want.”
*
With nothing else to do, Simon picked up one of his journals, then sat and wrote down everything he could remember about this last set of visions. As he did this, he shook his head. He should have done that every other time as well. When he was done with this latest rendering of his current visions, he would go back and write down what he could remember from the earlier ones. It was the only way to track whatever the hell was happening. To the best of his ability, he noted the dates and times when his senses went crazy and when the whirling rumbling noise interrupted him.
The woman crying really got to him. He couldn’t tell if she was a prisoner or what. He presumed she was bl
indfolded or in complete darkness because of the shadows, the quiet. However, nothing gave him any sign as to where she was. To make this record was completely defeating in that way, but it helped drain it all from his brain, so he could think again. After a hot shower, as he collapsed down for bed, he whispered to the woman in the darkness, “Calm down, just take it easy. I’m here. I’m not sure how much help I can be, but I’m here.”
Almost a sense of peace filled him, as he reached out to her. Only he got no answer.
He frowned because it seemed there was this wall between them now. He couldn’t see a door to walk through, and, given the hour, he wondered if he even wanted to walk through one anyway. He frowned at that because he generally liked to help the underdog. If she was a victim, he wanted to help her, but was she being held against her will, a prisoner somewhere? Or was she just somebody who was overcome by a bad scenario in her world?
That meant something completely different. Because, if she was just having a bad time, well, he could understand that, and he could send her a virtual hug. Not that he had any clue if that was even possible or not, but it was about how he felt. Trying to help, as he lay here in the darkness, all he could do was close his eyes, trying to remember his grandmother’s lessons, sending waves of comforting energy in the direction of the crying sad woman. He didn’t know why it was so different this time.
With the abused children, Simon had seen visions of them being collected and held captive, yet Simon had only connected with the one child. He thought at the time that maybe it was because the others were dead. He didn’t know about this psychic stuff; it wasn’t his thing, and he had no idea what he was capable of. Unfortunately it was apparently becoming his thing, and that was a whole different story.
When it came to the woman on the bridge, he had probably connected with her because she was so emotionally overwrought. He didn’t really know why that one had connected. It could have been because Simon had felt so bad about his friend David’s suicide. Perhaps it was because he wanted to help, and so he picked up that same suicidal energy of that one woman, which the asshole had been fostering in her, pushing her to do the deed.
But what did any of those jumpers from the bridge have to do with this woman? Who was this crying woman? And why was she so haunted? Not only haunted but so devastated and broken by the life around her? It drove him crazy. He couldn’t seem to help, so what was he supposed to do? That helplessness, that hopeless inability to make a change in one’s own life, which seemed to be happening all around him, was driving him nuts.
