by A J Sherwood
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Epilogue
Author
This book is a work of fiction, so please treat it like a work of fiction. Seriously. References to real people, dead people, good guys, bad guys, stupid politicians, companies, restaurants, cats with attitudes, events, products, dragons, locations, pop culture references, or wacky historical events are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. Or because I wanted it in the story. Characters, names, story, location, dialogue, weird humor and strange incidents all come from the author’s very fertile imagination and are not to be construed as real. No, I don’t believe in killing off main characters. Villains are a totally different story.
JON’S DOWNRIGHT RIDICULOUS SHOOTING CASE
Jon’s Mysteries Case 1
PRINTING HISTORY
March 2019
Copyright © 2018 by AJ Sherwood
Cover by Katie Griffin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.
Purchase only authorized editions.
www.ajsherwood.com
Trigger Warnings:
Your average cop show violence and criminals
Tags:
Companionable snark, Flirting, Kissing, Jon needs a hug, Donovan gives the best hugs, Getting together, Self-esteem issues, Explicit content, Anal Sex, Romantic Sex, Random shooting, Which Donovan isn’t happy about, Donovan is a gentleman, Sort of, Jon just makes it REALLY REALLY HARD Okay?, Bisexual character, Public displays of affection, Muscles, Communication, Healthy relationships, The fluff might fucking kill you, Supernatural elements, Modern with Magic, Feels, All the Feels, Mostly accurate medical stuff, Multiple electronics died in the creation of this story, blame Jon
1
I stared through the two-way mirror at the very, very guilty woman sitting at the interrogation table. Detective Borrowman sat across from her, his back to me, an earbud in his ear so that I could talk to him. We’d discovered the easiest, least painful way for him to communicate with me was to leave a walkie-talkie with its channel open, button taped down, propped up against the mirror. As long as I didn’t touch it, the device lived.
For three years I’d been playing lie-detector for the police. They liked me better than the machines, as I could direct them on what questions to ask, on possible avenues to investigate. The machine could only give yes/no answers, leaving the policemen operating it guessing. Borrowman was one of my favorite people to work with. Aside from just being a good cop and generally nice human being, he had the patience to put up with my quirks.
And I had lot of them.
Although in my defense, I didn’t want any of them.
“Mrs. Turnbull, I’m going to repeat this to make sure I have this right.” Borrowman made a show reading off the notes in front of him. “You had no idea that your husband was having an affair.”
“Right,” she answered, the thin line of her mouth pressed so tightly it almost disappeared into her face. Which was quite the feat, as she’d slathered on some very bright red lipstick.
“Lie,” I informed Borrowman. “She knew.”
Borrowman, used to having me in his ear, didn’t even blink. “George Turnbull racked up ten thousand dollars in hotel fees, flowers, weekend getaways, and some rather nice diamond cufflinks, all for your next-door neighbor, and you had no idea? Not even a suspicion?”
“No, I had no idea that my husband was fucking another man,” she spat out, the fine bones in her hands going white and rigid.
Shaking my head, I stared at her in pity. She’d known, alright. She’d known, and she was on fire with hatred, betrayal, and disgust. The meridian lines of energy wound up inside of her body glowed like neon signs, invisible to the normal person but so easy for me to see. Only someone with my psychic ability could see what I did, although my talent was one of the rarer ones. I’d never actually met someone who shared my ability. It had taken me years of self-study to figure out how to read the colors, the lines, the flashes of light that I saw inside of people. While useful, most of the time I found all of that knowledge overwhelming.
Most of what I gleaned from Mrs. Turnbull was anger and pain. The meridian line along her heart chakra flared red in anger, deep and nearly pitch-black, indicating homicidal rage. Apt, in this case, as I could see the sickening grey-white of murder staining the area around her solar plexus. She’d murdered her husband, alright. Unfortunately, my testimony alone was not enough to put her away. A psychic’s findings were admissible in court—assuming the psychic was properly licensed—but they had to have collaborating evidence. Hence the interrogation.
Borrowman sat back, his finger tapping a quick three beat staccato against the table. It was our signal that he needed something from me to go on.
I leaned in a little toward the walkie-talkie propped on the mirror’s sill and suggested, “She’s very homophobic. Doesn’t feel guilty about the murder. Try suggesting that you understand why she would be disgusted by the affair.”
“Mrs. Sinclair. I’m very sympathetic to your situation, truly. It had to be hard to find out that your husband was having an affair, no one likes to hear that news, but to learn it was with a man? It must have been horrifying to learn your husband was gay.” Borrowman sounded perfectly sincere, and I gave him a soft round of applause for the acting skills. I knew very well that he didn’t mind gays. Borrowman was as straight as a two-by-four, but when I’d told him I myself was gay, he hadn’t batted an eye. It was one of the many reasons why I liked the man.
Mrs. Sinclair lifted her head, a flash of hurt crossing her expression, marring it into further lines. She was probably attractive, a little older in her late forties, but still a pretty enough woman—when she wasn’t wearing the facial expressions of Cruella de Ville. Maybe it was the black hair and pale skin that made her look a little witchy. “Yes. Yes, that was horrifying. We’ve been married fifteen years, and for most of that we were perfectly happy, and then he starts…what was I supposed to say to my family? The people of my church? We’re good, moral people and he was….” she cut herself off, glowering with righteous indignation.
“Funny,” I mused aloud, “how murder is somehow less of a moral crime than being gay.”
If Borrowman had been able to, he likely would have snorted a laugh. He had a dark sense of humor, like me. “I understand. It had to be upsetting. So you cut up the credit card. Did you do that first, when you confronted him?”
“Yes,” she answered in a hiss, like a tea kettle about to boil. “I grabbed my crafting scissors and cut it right down the middle, in front of his face. I told him I knew what he’d done.”
“Did you? I have to say, I might have done the same. Do you happen to know what you did with those scissors? I don’t remember seeing them in evidence.”
She faltered for a moment, eyes shifting to the side, and for the first time, her gut instinct stirred. This question unnerved her. “N-no. I couldn’t tell you; I was too upset to think properly.”
“Lie, she knows exactly where the scissors went,” I corrected instantly. My attention perked, as now we were
getting somewhere. We were ninety percent sure from the autopsy that the scissors were the murder weapon. We just hadn’t been able to find them.
“Yeah, of course, it’s understandable,” Borrowman soothed her. “Then what? You didn’t just cut up a credit card, right? If I piss off my wife, I get quite the rant from her. I’m sure you had a lot to say to him.”
Revived, she slammed a hand against the table, incensed at the memory. “Yes. I told him he was going to hell for what he did. That he was to stop immediately. He tried apologizing—can you imagine, apologizing, as if that would do any good—and then he had the gall to ask for a divorce. He’d already destroyed his reputation, damaged mine, and then he thought divorce would somehow make it all better. He was going to destroy my life completely, all because he wanted a piece of ass.”
One of those people who believed divorce was worse than affairs, eh? I didn’t understand that line of thinking at all, but I’d seen firsthand how much damage a bad marriage could cause. Divorce was better than that. And divorce was definitely a better option than murder.
“Did your husband actually say that he wanted to divorce you and go to David Hardy instead?” Borrowman asked, tone still low and soothing.
“He said David made him happy,” she spat out. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He made it sound like I was the problem, when I hadn’t done anything wrong!”
“Is that when it got physical?”
“I slapped him, yes,” she admitted, mock-grudgingly. I could tell she’d enjoyed getting some pain in. “He grabbed my wrist to stop me. He started yelling, I don’t remember what, and I had to fight to get away from him. I didn’t want him to touch me. It was so filthy, him using those hands to touch me, after he’d been…been with him. I couldn’t stand it.”
“I’m sure anyone in that position would feel the same. And it had to be scary, right? Your husband was much larger and stronger than you; to have him restrain you like that, I’m sure you panicked. You wanted to get away from him. It wouldn’t have been possible with your own strength, though.”
“No,” she agreed, still caught up in the memory, the recounting of the story. “But I had the scissors still in hand, and—” abruptly she realized what she was saying and stopped dead.
“And?” Borrowman encouraged with a wave of the fingers. “Keep going, Mrs. Sinclair.”
“I won’t.” She looked about her, reminded suddenly of her surroundings, that she sat in an interrogation room for a reason. “I want a lawyer.”
“Of course, you can call for one. But do you need one? Can’t you just tell me what happened next?”
“I want a lawyer,” she maintained, scared now. “I-I didn’t kill my husband and I want a lawyer.”
Damn, I hated when they lawyered up so fast. Miles of legal tape inevitably followed. It could be months before we got the evidence we needed to link her to the murder, and I didn’t like the idea of this woman out on bail in the meantime. Playing a hunch, I requested, “Ask her if she buried the scissors.”
“Mrs. Sinclair, I’m going to get up and get you a phone so you can call a lawyer, alright? Just one more, quick question. Did you bury the scissors?”
Her already pale skin turned ashen. “No.”
“Yup,” I crowed, bouncing on the balls of my feet. “She sure did.”
“In the yard?” Borrowman pressed.
“I told you, no.”
I grinned at her through the mirror. “Yup, they are.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Sinclair. I’ll get you that phone now.” He stood up and left the interrogation room, coming around to my side of the mirror. I very carefully maneuvered back toward the wall. I’d brushed up against the door’s electronic keypad on my last visit and had no desire to go through that again. Maintenance had not been pleased with me.
Poking his head inside, Borrowman grinned at me. “It’s always so much faster if I have you on hand for interrogation.”
“Hey, I’m worth my fee.” I shrugged, returning the smile. “And happy to put this woman away. Man, she’s a piece of work.”
“You’re telling me. I think I’m done; after she gets a lawyer, he’s not going to let me have another crack at her today. Why don’t you go back to the office. I’ll call you if I need you again.”
It could be hours, days, or even weeks before Borrowman could continue on this case so I shrugged agreement. “Sure.”
“Careful,” he cautioned, swinging the door wider. “I have the door, scoot past me.”
Unfortunately, his actions were necessary. Something about my psychic ability made anything electronic go haywire. Directly touching something fried it completely. Being in a long-term environment with it eventually did the same. Living in the modern world, with all of the electronics and portable devices, was challenging, to say the least. I slipped past him as best I could, avoiding any contact with the door frame, and breathed a little easier once I gained the hallway. I slipped on my medium-grey shades as I did so. The light grey shades worked well for when I needed to read someone, but my darker shades protected me from being overwhelmed by the auras that throngs of people produced.
“Bane.” Borrowman paused, looking me over in concern. “Look, I know you get asked this a lot, and I’m not trying to push, but…you really need an anchor.”
Sighing, I looked away from him. I knew that I needed an anchor. All psychics did, once they attained a certain power level. I needed one more than most. But it was precisely because I needed so much help, so much time and attention, that I felt an anchor would be a bad idea. I’d wear out anyone who anchored to me. It would take a saint to put up with me, in fact. “Borrowman…” I trailed off wearily, not sure what to say.
“Look, it’s not just that your shields are craptastic,” he said earnestly. “I mean, sunglasses being your shield is just ridiculous. Or that you kill anything electronic. You’re in a dangerous line of work, you have zero situational awareness when you start focusing on someone, and I don’t want you to get shot again.”
“Shot at,” I corrected instantly, as I always did when someone brought that up.
Borrowman waved this away. “Potato, potato. You know what I mean. This lone wolf thing you’ve got going on isn’t working out in your favor, Jon.”
Because this man was a friend, I didn’t smack him for repeating what everyone in my inner circle had been saying for years. “Look, I know all of this. But look at it from my perspective. I’d have to find someone who’s as patient as a saint, okay with me being gay, able to drop everything at all hours, with either military or bodyguard training. At least. That’s a pretty tall order, and last I checked? Captain America wasn’t available.”
Briefly diverted, Borrowman canted his head in curiosity. “Is that your type? Muscles?”
I snapped my fingers. “Don’t get sidetracked, pay attention. I don’t want to repeat this conversation. Do you understand what I’m saying? I literally don’t know of a single person who could be an anchor for me who wouldn’t run screaming in the first week. Having an anchor is a pipe dream for me, alright?”
Exasperated, he retorted, “Someone like that really could exist, you know.”
“Yeah? Then prove it.”
I was the sort of person who required a cup of very black coffee and an hour before I truly hit ‘functioning’ level. People had more or less learned to just wave hi when I came into the office, giving me time to reach my desk, sort reports, and properly wake up. I came through the main door of Psy Investigative Agency expecting hellos, only to be completely ignored. My co-workers didn’t always say something, but they at least usually noticed when I arrived.
Not this morning.
Alright, brain, this looked important. Wake up and focus. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, the blue carpet unstained by blood or gruesome bits, the tasteless art still gracing the white walls, the flimsy cubbyhole partitions still up. But everyone had gathered to the far right of the big room, around the coffee maker, only I didn’t
see any coffee brewing. That alone sounded several alarms; this office ran on coffee.
Skirting around the empty receptionist’s desk, I headed for my coworkers, not sure if I should be checking my gun in its shoulder holster or not. Four people used to handling criminals huddled together like scared sheep? Something serious had to be going on.
“Jon.” Marcy reached out and snagged my elbow, her husky voice in a stage whisper. “I’m so glad you’re here, maybe you can tell us.”
“Tell you what? You seriously look like you’re ready to dive under a desk and take cover. Is there a bomb in here I need to know about?” Please no bombs. I’d had to defuse it the last time, and I’d rather skip that life experience, thanks.
Tyson leaned in, although he kept one eye on our boss’s office door. Even he, a veteran cop with ten years of experience, looked ready to shoot something. “You know how Jim said he had an interview lined up this morning for another police consultant?”
Did I remember things like that with only three sips of coffee? “Yeah?”
“Guy just came in ten minutes ago. I’m telling you, if I were still a cop, I’d find a way to pat that guy down. He’s got thug written all over him.”
I turned to look, as Jim’s office had one of those picture frame windows in it, which let us see in. But the partitions blocked my view; I could barely get more than the back of the guy’s head. I’d failed to change to my medium sunglasses, which didn’t help, so I switched them out as I asked, “He’s that scary looking?”
“His head shot on his resume looked decent,” Sharon mourned. She wrapped her blue cardigan tighter around her ample chest, warding against the air conditioning blasting against her. “But anything from the collar down seems to be tattoos, his hair’s so short he looks bald, and he’s got one of those vibes, you know?”
“Like he eats small children for breakfast and participates in the ritual slaughter of puppies,” Marcy agreed with a frantic nod.
Carol leaned against the cheap Formica counter top, tapping long nails against her mug. She’d heated up water for tea, I could smell it from here. Carol had come on before I did, the first psychic to join the Psy Investigative Agency, and completely different from me. She was a more traditional ‘reader,’ meaning she could use objects to trace their location. She was also apparently the only one not completely freaking out. Instead, she looked thoughtful, brown eyes narrowed as she stared that direction. “It’s strange, though. I’m not getting any kind of negative vibe from him.”
