by Dale Mayer
She half laughed. “If you’re a psychic, why are you talking to me in my head? You realize that everybody will think I’m mental?”
“Who is everyone?”
She quieted.
“Are you okay?” he asked suddenly.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know. I can’t trust myself. Everybody says I can’t trust myself.”
“Who is everybody?”
“My family, my husband.”
“Because of your grief?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Apparently it’s not normal to grieve for this long.”
“I think it’s very normal,” he argued quietly. “Nobody can give you instructions on how long it takes to become accustomed to the loss of somebody you cared about, and, in your case, you’re adding guilt to the mix. So that becomes even harder to let go of.”
“Am I responsible?” she asked quietly. “I must be. I was riding my bike, when it was hit by the car.”
“Did you feel like the hit was intentional?”
“No, not at all. I just wasn’t paying attention.”
“Is that the truth? Were you not paying attention, or you just don’t remember?”
“I don’t know. It was terrible—whether I assume that or I just wasn’t paying attention, I don’t know.”
“And it’s quite possible. When the weather is bad, your head would have been down.”
She sighed. “I also had taken a blow that day too.”
“What kind of a blow?”
“My husband, he asked for a divorce,” she whispered in a soft voice.
“Ouch, and yet you’re still together?”
“Not for long. I think he’s only stayed because I was,” she hesitated, then used the word, “fragile.”
“Fragile,” he said.
“Yes, and I think he was afraid I would hurt myself.”
Simon knew instinctively that she would have too. “I’m very sorry. It’s hard to lose a child and your sight and your marriage.”
“You know about my sight?” she asked hesitantly.
“A little bit, all I see are shadows coming from your eyes.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “shadows. Sometimes I wonder if they aren’t the shadows of my life instead of the shadows that I see.”
“Whatever metaphor you need to use, just know that you don’t have to remain a victim.”
“It’s not being a victim, and I deserve all the guilt that I can take because I caused the loss of that beautiful child.”
“And when would you ever get over it?” he asked curiously. “When would you ever be absolved of this guilt?”
“Never,” she said passionately. “Somebody has to pay.”
He winced because it sounded a little too close to some religious fervor that he wasn’t comfortable with. “Who told you that?”
“Everyone,” she said quietly. “Everyone.”
“Do you belong to a religion?”
“No. Not really. And I wouldn’t be allowed to go now anyway because I’m too unclean.”
“Unclean?” he asked, questioning.
“Guilt. It stains my soul.”
He shook his head, more worried about Pamela than before. “In my world, God absolves us of our sins, if we are truly repentant.”
“That’s because you aren’t guilty. The guilty find no peace in our souls.”
“I get that. I really do. But I wonder how much of that talk is coming from other people.”
“Maybe. It doesn’t matter because they’re correct.”
“Are they angry at anybody else in the world over this?”
“Yes. They are. It’s been a very tough year, and everyone blamed the other driver. Everyone blamed me. Everybody’s blamed life, God even, and I’m crying out.”
Then suddenly Simon heard another voice.
“Who are you talking to?” some man asked Pamela.
She immediately fell silent. “I’m sorry,” she murmured in a conciliatory tone. “I was just talking out loud.”
Simon stayed silent in the background. He heard the voice again, via her hearing.
“That is a symptom of going crazy,” the man snapped.
She mumbled an apology yet again, and finally there was silence. She whispered, “You need to go away before I get hurt.”
At that, his eyebrows raised. “So you’ve been hurt, and you are a prisoner?”
“No.” And then she whispered, “Well, yes.”
Simon asked, “Which is it?”
“It’s a yes, but you can’t help me.” And she slammed the door shut.
Chapter 19
Kate walked into the office the next morning, her head full. As she sat down at her desk, she reached for her phone and immediately contacted Pamela’s mother. “I need your daughter’s contact information.”
“No, please, I already told you that it’s not a good idea.”
“I can get it, but this will be much easier.”
“No, no, no. You don’t understand. She’s too delicate for you to talk to.”
“Maybe, but I need to confirm a few things. Now is she living with you, with her husband, or someone else? Where is she?”
The woman hesitated.
“This has to come to an end,” Kate said sternly.
The woman gasped. “What do you know?” she asked. A fearful note was in her voice.
“I want Pamela’s contact information, and I want it now.”
“But you really shouldn’t have any contact with her.”
“That’s just too damn bad.”
The mother hung up.
Staring at the phone, Kate shook her head. “That won’t work with me.” She looked over at Rodney. “I don’t know what to do with this,” she announced.
Lilliana had just entered the bullpen with her cup of coffee in hand and asked, “What’s up?”
Kate explained what Simon had said and that the mother was acting suspicious and wouldn’t give Kate any contact information on Pamela.
“Are we really expecting her to be a prisoner?” Lilliana asked.
“I’m not sure if prisoner is the right term,” Kate replied.
“Is she being held against her will?”
“Potentially.”
“That’s the definition of a prisoner,” Rodney said in a dry tone. “Does Pamela have anything to do with these recent fatalities?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Does anybody in her circle have something to do with all this?” Lilliana asked.
“Possibly.”
“Get a warrant to search the property,” Lilliana said. “Present all your evidence to the DA, get a warrant, and see what comes down. Because, if she’s in harm’s way, we have to do what we can to help her.”
“I get it.” Kate reached up to her temples, trying to rub away a headache starting there. She snatched up her phone and immediately called the DA for a warrant. When she tried to explain the circumstances, the woman snorted.
“Because a psychic said so?”
“And because the mother refuses to give me any information about the daughter.”
“Try the husband again. Better yet, show up at his house.”
“I can do that.” She looked at her watch. “He’s probably gone to work though.”
“Go to his house, check it out, and contact him first. I’m not getting you a warrant based on a psychic.”
Kate slammed down her phone on her desk and glared at Lilliana. “I knew that would happen.”
“Simon again, huh?” Lilliana spoke with a note of apology in her voice.
“She won’t do anything based on Simon’s advice.”
“Of course not. It doesn’t matter how much he might have helped in previous cases, every time his information could be wrong.”
“And every time it could be right.” Kate pulled up her notes and dialed the husband. “I need to speak with your wife.”
“That’s just too da
mn bad,” he snapped. “My wife is resting.”
“So she’s at home?”
“Doesn’t matter if she’s at home or not. She’s delicate.”
“Delicate is not the issue. You can be there when I talk to her.”
“I’m on my way to work, so that’s not happening.”
“Then I’ll have to stop by your house.”
“No way,” he snapped. Kate heard the note of alarm in his voice. “I’m turning around and heading back home again. If I have to stay there and protect her from you guys, then that is what I’ll do.”
“Why are you trying to protect her from us?” she asked curiously. She put her phone on Speaker, so that her partner heard.
“You guys pounded her last time, asking all kinds of stuff about how she was trying to commit suicide or she’s the one who caused the accident. I don’t know, but she’s terrified of the police now.”
“Is she, indeed?” she said. “I wonder if she’s terrified of the police or terrified of you.”
“That’s enough of that,” he roared in outrage. “You want to talk to her, you should talk to her lawyer, our lawyer.”
“I’d be happy to, what’s his name? I’ll go ahead and contact him and have both of you brought down to the station for questioning.”
Dead silence came from the other end of the phone. “Why are you doing this?” he ranted.
“I just said that I needed to speak to your wife. So you give me the information, or I’ll get a warrant, and I’ll come and search your house.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Come to the station. Produce your wife, healthy and willing to be here, and we’ll talk. Otherwise I’ll treat your wife as a hostage and come with a SWAT team.” And, with that, she hung up, winced. “A bit too much, huh?”
“Not too much,” Rodney said. “When you think about it, if she’s being held against her will, and nobody will let her talk to you, then it’s a situation where she needs rescuing to some degree.”
“Something is going on,” Lilliana said, “and, yeah, it involves Simon, so I’m inclined to agree with him here.”
“Hey, maybe this Pamela ties in the annual deaths in that area with the additional recent ones. I don’t know,” Kate snapped. “This lack of cooperation—from Brandon, from the faculty dean, now with Pamela’s family—it’s just so frustrating. But why would it have anything to do with these kids at the university?”
“Yeah? What about that Brandon kid?” Lilliana asked.
“Nothing new. I’m still waiting on the forensics reports on the two females.” Just then an email popped up, a beep signaling her. “And here they are now. So, for Paula, there is no forensic evidence in particular, other than the bump on her head. Two kinds of blood were found on the carpet in the dorm room, verifying that was the crime scene—which we already knew—and tons of fingerprints were found. It’s a student residence, so that is to be expected, and they have lots of parties. DNA from multiple people in the bedding as well.” She winced at that. “So, who the hell knows if any of that leads us anywhere?”
“And what about the other one, whose blood is also on the carpet? Candy, is it?” Lilliana asked.
“Candy’s case has one distinction. The same projectile at the side of the head, like with Sally, but also drugs were in her system.”
“Drugs, that’s new,” Rodney said.
Kate nodded. “Recreational? It looks like quite a cocktail.” She frowned.
“So they really did party,” Lilliana stated.
“Alcohol too.” Kate sighed at that.
“Would she have even been capable of riding a bike?” Rodney asked.
“I don’t know.” Kate picked up the phone and contacted Dr. Smidge.
When he answered, he was cranky and fed up. “You better not have any more victims.”
“No, but I do have questions.”
“I don’t have any answers.”
She smiled. “I’m looking at the cocktail of drugs and alcohol that you found in Candy’s system. Would she have been capable of riding a bike?”
“Maybe, but not too far. She probably could have managed, if she got balanced and had some help. She could have gone for a fair bit, considering. It’s amazing what the human body and the human mind can do.”
“Would she have ridden out in the middle of traffic like that?”
“That’s also quite possible, though—at the time of Candy’s death, which would have been a few hours after Paula’s TOD of about four a.m.—I don’t know how much traffic there even would have been.”
“If she was down there at that intersection and rode out into the middle of it, then it’s quite possible she rode straight into a car, like somebody heading to work in the morning, not expecting to see a cyclist pull out in front of them.”
“It’s possible. I found some damage from a collision, but it’s not bad.”
“Would the drugs have killed her?”
“It’s hard to say. It was definitely a cocktail.”
“Are we thinking she took it willingly?” Kate asked.
“It’s possible. There was no injection site that I could see, but her stomach was pretty full.”
“Considering she died just a few hours after Paula, I have to wonder how related they are.”
“That’s for you to figure out. Paula didn’t have any drugs in her system. She was killed by blunt force trauma to the front of her head.”
“I had wondered if she had something to do with Candy’s death, but it doesn’t sound like it.”
“Paula could have been the one who gave her the drugs, for all you know. I don’t imagine Candy would have taken all of these on her own.”
“You think the drugs were in her drinks?” Kate asked.
“It’s quite possible that the speed was. I’m still waiting on a more detailed tox analysis, but that’s enough to get you going.”
“Yeah, it surely is.”
“Paula had none of the drugs, alcohol only. And she had the same drink.”
“So, they were drinking together,” Kate murmured.
“It’s quite possible that Paula slipped the drugs into Candy’s drink and was either expecting to do more or would leave her like that.”
“And then what? Somebody interrupted them? Or,” Kate said quietly, “somebody decided to get rid of somebody who could turn the tables on the bad guys and could lie about her involvement.”
There was silence in the other end. “You know what? That makes about as much sense as anything,” he said tiredly. “Whatever happened to just having wet T-shirt contests and drinking until you puked?”
She laughed. “I think that still happens a lot too. But this group, in particular, has a nasty element.”
“Right, well, you should be checking with the faculty to see if any other nasty elements abound.”
“Yeah, I’ve sent several emails to the Dr. Agress and his executive assistant already. He was supposed to send me the files last night, and I haven’t received them as of yet.”
“Wow, so what is he hiding?”
“That’s exactly where we’re at.” As soon as she got off the phone with Dr. Smidge, she contacted Dr. Agress.
When his executive assistant said that he was out, Kate replied, “Okay, in that case, I’ll be coming with a warrant, sirens blaring, and we’ll search all the files ourselves. We’ll see how he likes that. Then I’ll call the president of the university myself and let him know how uncooperative the two of you have been. Then we’ll contact the UBC Legal Department. Does that suit you better?” As soon as the assistant started to yell into the phone, Kate said, “No, ma’am, I’m done. We asked for cooperation. We tried to keep it low-key. If you continue to choose not to cooperate, I’ll be sending in the media next.” She slammed down her phone again. Then she sat here, pinching the bridge of her nose.
When Colby came in, he asked, “What the hell was that all about?”
She glared at him. “Dr. Agress is stalling me,
refusing to cooperate, and so are the family of another woman who was involved in one of the accidents a year ago.”
His eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean, Paul refused to cooperate?” She crossed her arms over her chest and told him. He shook his head. “Let me talk to him.”
“Don’t even bother. I’ve already talked to the DA about getting a warrant. As far as I’m concerned, I’m bringing the press too.”
He winced.
“No, I’ve had it with this crap. We need answers before we end up with more dead people. I get that Dr. Agress’s only concerned about the politics and the university’s budget … not to mention his job, but those dead students belonged to his faculty too, and he should be giving a damn about them. That the crimes didn’t happen on campus shouldn’t matter.”
Colby held up a hand. “Now just stop.”
At his rebuke, she glared at him. “Why? Because he’s your friend?”
Instantly an awkward silence fell on the room, and she knew she’d crossed the line. She’d dared to bring up the reason he was telling her to back off.
He glared at her, his spine stiffening. “I’ll talk to him, Morgan,” he said in a hard voice. “Don’t you cross me.”
She crossed her arms, looked at the clock above his head. “Ten minutes. That’s how long until that warrant comes through.”
He took a long breath and then turned and walked out.
Slowly she sank back into her chair, closed her eyes, and waited for the noise to start up around her. Instead just dead silence. So she knew her team members were either shocked or pissed.
She rose, walked out of the bullpen with her cup, and filled it up with coffee. When she came back in again, they were talking normally.
Lilliana stood. “That won’t get you any brownie points.”
“If I was looking for brownie points, I would have become a chef. As it is, I’m helping the victims, and I don’t give a damn who is friends with who.” And she sat back down again.
Rodney leaned over. “He’s a good man, you know.”
“Fine. He needs to remember who his friends are and who they are not,” she said.
A few minutes later her phone buzzed. It was Colby with an order. “Get in here.”
She got up, and, pocketing her phone, she grabbed her coffee and walked to his office, where she leaned against the open doorway. It wasn’t so much insolence as it was trying to appear casual.
