by A J Sherwood
“The police all thought it was a hoax by then and wouldn’t listen to me,” she responded indignantly, flicking her hair over her shoulder, mouth pursed in a pout. “I didn’t have much choice, did I? I had my brother standing by, just in case it got ugly, but I had the gun on me for a reason. I didn’t trust the son of a bitch. I caught him outside of the library and he acted so confused, so innocent, that it made me mad. And it scared me, because there I was right in front of him, and he could still play dumb and stupid. Even if I dragged him in front of the police, they wouldn’t believe he’d done anything, that’s how good his act was. I tried to catch him in a lie, asked him a lot of questions; I even recorded it on my phone.”
“Do you still have that?” Donovan interrupted, leaning ever so slightly forward.
Shame-faced, she shook her head. “Sorry. I’d tested it earlier. I thought it would work, but it didn’t. The recording was just muffled sounds, you couldn’t make a single word out. I deleted it.”
Of course she hadn’t; there’d been no recording to begin with. “Go on.”
“Well, he got sly at the end, like he knew what I was trying to do. Then he stood up, and I did too, as he was making me nervous. He bowed and with his head toward the ground said he’d get me for this, for cornering him like that. I knew then he wouldn’t stop, and I was scared. He knew that I knew, he had access to my dorm, and access to the cameras, and there wasn’t anything to stop him from going after me. I didn’t see any choice, I had to protect myself.”
“I see.” And I did, all too clearly. “Thank you, Ms. Thompson. You said the school will expel you for this?”
“Yeah,” she bit off, glaring. “Like this would have happened if they’d just made sure campus security was doing their jobs. And now, suddenly, I’m the bad guy? What the hell!”
I made an appropriate noise of sympathy. “Can we ask where you’re staying so we can reach you later?”
“Oh, I’m crashing with a friend. I can text you the address.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t gloat—that might scare her—but at least I had another viable way of tracking her down now. “I think that about covers things. One more question, though. You mentioned your brother was with you through part of this? Anyone else in your family?”
“My sister, too.”
“Can we have their contact information? Sometimes other people notice things that you don’t. It might help us close this case.”
Eager to please her audience, she took her phone out of her purse. “Of course, sure. Here, this is my brother.”
Donovan angled his head and tapped the information into his phone, then the sister’s number. “That’s helpful, thank you. Can you text them both and tell them I’ll be calling? It will be less strange that way, and they’ll know that we’ve already talked to you.”
“Absolutely, no problem,” she promised, already tapping out the message. I noted her phone was not new; in fact, a crack snaked its way across the top of the screen. A validation of sorts that she really didn’t have the money to draw an extortionist’s attention.
“Well, I know that you said you didn’t have much time.” Eager to be gone, I stood and gave her another professional smile. “Thanks for speaking with us. If we have another follow up question, can we call you?”
“Anytime,” she assured me firmly. “I want this settled.”
Of course she didn’t. That was probably why she’d waited so long to call us back. “Thank you. Be safe on your way back.”
Donovan followed my lead, walking out with me, and we didn’t say a word to each other until we made it back to my Humvee. Only then did I collapse dramatically over the steering wheel and groan. “What a bitch!”
Donovan studied me thoughtfully. “Was any part of that the truth?”
“About half of it, oddly enough. She really doesn’t know who is sending her the notes, she really was the victim at first, and she really is a poor student. She was definitely afraid at some point, there’s a memory of fear lingering there when she spoke about the situation. Something did actually happen, although God knows what. Oh, and her brother and sister being involved, although I can’t tell if they know the truth or not. But the rest of it? Lie. Bald faced lie. She’s taking the drama of the situation and running with it. She’s enjoying herself immensely. Poor Chen, he’s just a convenient scapegoat for this whole charade.”
Making a face, Donovan admitted, “She’s very convincing, though. If not for you giving me a head’s up, I would have believed her.”
“Oh, she’s very clever,” I agreed flatly, starting the engine. “All too clever. She’s also half-innocent, which makes this complicated. My hope is that the letter she handed us will lead us to the real culprit. I can’t do much with it, but I know who to ask.”
Donovan buckled up as I put the Humvee into reverse. “Who?”
“Carol and my mother.”
8
I found Mom down in the morgue of the police precinct, as usual, her red hair stuck up in a messy bun with a pen holding it all together. Her slightly plump figure moved about the table as if she were engaged in a very serious study of the corpse on the table. Which, actually, she was. She looked up when I entered, a smile on her face that dropped ten years from her looks, then waved me back out and toward her office, a signal I’d received many a time.
I pointed toward her desk and stepped back out, closing the door, as I’d never cared for the smell in the morgue. They kept the place clean enough, but it was freezing in there and smelled like bleach and formaldehyde. Donovan looked through the glass inset in the door for a moment. “Your mom in there?”
Nodding, I led him further down the white hallway. “Yup. She signaled for us to wait in her office.”
Donovan followed me into Mom’s rather cramped office. About a thousand files covered every available surface on her desk. Another table was crammed in between three filing cabinets, covered with paper that hadn’t seen the light since they cracked King Tut’s tomb. A computer sat somewhere on the desk—I saw the cords for it—and kept well away from that area, as I couldn’t see it behind all of the black binders and stacked pathology reports. The room was literally on the verge of being cited for a potential fire hazard. My mother didn’t have an organizational bone in her body. Like me, there was method to her madness, as she could always lay hands on what she was looking for. The difference was, I could appear to be organized. She didn’t even try.
Looking around the walls, Donovan saw the certifications and awards, the pictures she had up of me, Natalie, Skylar, and, of course, her wedding picture with Rodger. I ignored that one. Picking one up off the desk, he asked, “So this is…who?”
“Ah, the tall blond is my older sister, Natalie. Skylar is her daughter.”
“Your niece looks like her grandmother,” he observed.
“She inherited all of the Irish genes,” I agreed with a shrug. “Just not the psychic ability that usually goes with them. Fortunately for her.”
He gave me an odd look for that statement, although I didn’t know why; it was pretty obvious why being a psychic was so difficult. Instead, he veered into another topic. “So your mother is psychic, but of a different type, and she can read the dead as well as you read the living, but live people are too much for her to read?”
“The energy is far too bright for her; it tends to be like an explosion of color,” I tried to explain. “She can manipulate it, but not really see it.”
“It’s rather like looking through a kaleidoscope while on an acid trip,” my mother explained, sailing through the office door, a bounce in her step. “Only without the acid. To be more accurate, I can sense auras on a general level, as they’re far too blinding for me to really look at. You, especially, are almost painful, you’re so bright. Jon, let me borrow your sunglasses.”
I handed my darkest shades over as I informed her, “We need to borrow you.”
“I figured as much, since you’re here on company time. And who’s
this bright young man?”
“My co-worker, Donovan Havili. He just joined us last week. Donovan, my mother and the lead forensic psychic here at the department, Lauren Douglas.”
Donovan extended a hand, which my mother took in a firm grip. “Nice to meet you.”
“Very nice to meet you,” my mother turned, looking him up and down in a blatant study. “And I do see why my son’s happy to have you.”
“I appreciate the compliment, Mrs. Douglas.” A blush on his cheeks, he managed to return the greeting without turning tomato red.
“Don’t you dare, I’m not that old yet. Lauren will do fine.” She retreated to sit behind her desk, pushing a stack of files to the side so she could see both of us without craning her neck. “Well, what do you need my help with? Something case related and dealing with a deceased person, I assume.”
“You’re mostly correct.” My mother’s always been a sharp tack. “How much have you heard about the Alice Thompson case?”
“The one where she shot another student on campus? Just the normal rumors.” My mother’s blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. “There’s no corpse that I’m aware of. Which side are you working for?”
“The guy she shot,” Donovan answered bluntly. “Who, by the way, didn’t deserve to be shot.”
Mom nodded sagely. “I had a feeling. Is the girl guilty, then?”
“That’s the strange part. I didn’t get a reading that said she’s guilty of orchestrating the extortion, although she’s guilty of blowing it out of proportion, shooting an innocent guy, and certainly enjoying the drama.”
“How, exactly, is she out of jail after shooting someone?” Mom demanded incredulously. “I assume that you interviewed her outside?”
“I did. And, apparently, because it was ‘self-defense,’ she was given a low bail and is out right now. Crazy, I know.” I reached into my bag and drew out the note in the Ziploc bag. “She gave us this, said it was the first note she received. Can you play official witness for me? I want Carol to see if she can do a divining and trace which printer it came from.”
Mom agreed with a shrug, “It’ll be faster to do it that way than get a warrant for every printer on campus. Sure. You’re cooking me dinner tonight.”
“Pot roast with veggies,” I countered. My mother hated to cook, only did it as a matter of survival. Which was funny, as she was actually a decent cook.
She extended her hand across the desk, shaking on the bargain. “Sold. Can this wait until after work hours, then?”
“If Carol’s willing, sure.”
Donovan took this as his cue and stepped out, cellphone in his hand. “I’ll call her.”
“Thanks.”
My mother waited three seconds before quickly scooting to Donovan’s vacant seat and whispering, “He really has the most lovely aura. Is he gay? Bi?”
“Mom. I love you, but stop.” It took patience to not scream. She, of all people, realized how difficult romance was for me but kept pushing the issue anyway.
“So he is,” she crowed. “What’s stopping you? Flirt with the man.”
For a woman who claimed she couldn’t read living auras, she sure took a lot of lucky guesses. “Stop. I mean it.”
She pouted at me like a child denied a treat. “You always make things so difficult.”
“No, mother dearest, I AM difficult, and there is a difference.” Definitely time to change the subject. “Is Rodger coming to dinner too?”
The flat line of her mouth said she knew very well what I was doing, but let herself be distracted. “Yes. Why, you don’t want him to?”
I never wanted him to. “I’m just trying to get a headcount on how much to make. Donovan, I’ve discovered, can eat as much as three people. It apparently takes a lot to keep a body that big moving. Either that, or his Tongan blood enables him to eat a whole week’s worth of groceries without blinking, take your pick. So with him, and perhaps Carol and Sharon, and my family, I’m thinking a seven pound roast should do the trick?”
“Nine,” Donovan corrected as he re-entered the office. “If you want to be on the safe side.”
Turning to him, Mom eyed him thoughtfully. “Did you bankrupt your parents in groceries while growing up?”
“Fortunately not, although they saved $75 a week when I joined the army,” he informed her with that mischievous grin he had. “Jon, Carol says if you feed her too, she’ll come.”
“Done,” I assured him.
Stepping back out, Donovan relayed the answer to Carol.
Giving me a reproving look, she whispered, “At least think about it.”
I stared her down. I would, in fact, do my best to not think about it. I had enough bad history of dating men that I didn’t really want to go into that land of wonder again. Even with a man as exceptional as Donovan Havili.
Halfway back to the office, Donovan received a phone call. He picked it up and put it to his right ear, smart man that he was, keeping it well away from me in the driver’s seat. “This is Havili. Oh, hey, Chen. Ah, you want a status update?”
Reading his expression, I whispered, “You can tell him everything we know, it’s fine; he’s our client after all.”
Nodding understanding, his uncertainty eased. “We interviewed Alice Thompson this morning and got a strange mix. She didn’t really think you were the culprit, she just shot you to get more drama out of the situation. Yeah, girl’s not right in the head. She is, however, really being extorted and has no idea by whom. Strange, I know; you’d think she’d be worried enough about that to not stir the pot more. Right, well, she did hand over a piece of evidence, the first note she got, and we’re going to do a divining on it, see if we can determine what printer it came from. That’ll hopefully lead us to a new suspect. No, today, we’re doing that today. Hang on.” Taking the phone away from his ear, he put it on speaker. “Jon, he wanted to know if what we find is court admissible.”
“It is, but we have to preserve the chain of evidence,” I explained, pitching my voice to be more easily heard over the road noise. “So, what that entails is an officer of the court, at the very least, and another psychic as witness. In this case, I called my mother, as she’s a forensic psychic with the police department, and she’s playing witness for us. The divining is being done by another psychic in my agency. That way, we can submit new evidence to the case and force Detective Solomon to admit this isn’t a case of self-defense.”
“What do you expect divining to show?” Chen asked, his tone a strange mixture of uncertainty and hope.
“Which printer the page came from. As long as it’s not in a place you have access to, we’re golden. I understand that you’re the maintenance guy for the girls’ dorms?”
“Yes. That is to say, I am maintenance for all the dorms, along with two other people.”
I blinked, as that wasn’t what Alice had insinuated at all. “So there’s two other possible people who would have access to her dorm room?”
“That is correct. One of them is student, like I am, one of them is campus staff.”
Donovan gave me a frustrated roll of the eyes, which I shared. That really should have come up before this point. Donovan angled the phone back to his mouth to ask, “Any reason in particular she would latch onto you?”
“I assume is because of my major. The other student is in Agriculture.”
That made a stupid amount of sense. “Alright, well, that’s our update for the moment, Chen. Sit tight, hopefully by tomorrow I can submit evidence that will help clear your name a little.”
“You are working hard for my sake, Mr. Bane, Mr. Havili. Thank you very much.”
“You are very welcome.”
Donovan hung up and growled a curse. “Even if the other maintenance guys have no computer background, wouldn’t it be easy enough for them to turn off the camera for a minute? Detective Solomon sure jumped to a lot of conclusions in this case.”
“He’s famous for it,” I grunted, changing lanes in preparation for turnin
g into the office’s parking lot. “Which is part of the reason why I clash with him so often. He sees a case’s evidence as it stands at the moment, assumes what must have happened, and then you have to damn near hand him overwhelming evidence to convince him otherwise. I have no idea how he became detective with that attitude, I really don’t, but I’ve been forced to deal with him for the past three years.”
Shoving his phone back into his pocket, Donovan commented darkly, “I haven’t even met this guy and I already don’t like him.”
“Join the club. We have jackets.” Parking at Psy was always a little tricky, as we didn’t have enough parking spaces for this building, and I ended up half over a curb, as the only spot left definitely wasn’t big enough for my Humvee. Grabbing my bag, I hopped out and headed in. As I passed through the front glass door, I glanced at the clock on the wall and realized we had about a half hour until my mom arrived.
Deciding to put my time to use, I called my local grocer and put in an order for a pot roast, veggies, and such so that I could have them delivered and ready for me by the time I made it back to my place. It would save time that way. That done, I stepped out and carefully edged toward Carol’s cubby, only to find her seat vacant.
Ah, right, she must be in her reading room. Changing directions, I headed down the narrow hallway to the back of the building and entered the first door on my right. It was originally meant to be a conference room, but Carol required a lot of tools for her trade. Tarot cards, crystals, sage, the works. I didn’t understand most of it, just that she needed to use it to focus her abilities, and I respected her craft.
Donovan apparently liked to know how things worked, though, as he sat at her elbow and watched, asking questions. I liked seeing him this way, sitting on the edge of his chair, his expression alight with curiosity and interest. Watching him, I felt my heart skip a beat. Why did I think he was cute like this? A giant of a man shouldn’t be cute but somehow he was. He looked at ease with the world, for once not on his guard. Carol adored people like him, ones who genuinely wanted to understand, and who were respectful, so she wore a smile on her face as she answered him.
