by A J Sherwood
The bullpen was lively as usual, everyone’s desks crammed together and a million conversations buzzing as people talked on the phones or conferred with colleagues. More than a few looked up as we passed, and I stayed smack in the middle of the walkway, avoiding all the computers, phone lines, and cords that trailed off the edges of desks. It felt somewhat akin to navigating a minefield, even though I could see the mines, and I blew out a breath of relief when I reached Hall’s desk without incident.
Hall was a tall, reed-thin man, whose bald head shone white under the fluorescent lights in contrast with his dark eyebrows and black suit. He sat at his desk but stood as we approached, a sort of grim resignation hovering over him like a dark cloud. “You got here fast. I appreciate that. I’ve got a conference room set up. Through here.”
We trooped after him the short distance into the conference room right off the bullpen and found that it was indeed set up for us. Three evidence boxes, a tray with water bottles, a carafe of coffee and mugs, and about a half dozen rods of various types, visible in evidence bags, lay on the table’s surface. All possible electronic equipment had been pulled out except the lights overhead. So they’d at least learned from that mistake, eh?
With us inside, Hall closed the door and turned to our two newbies curiously. “You’ve got new people, I see.”
“We do,” Jim responded, shifting so he could make the introductions without speaking over Carol’s head. “This is Donovan Havili. He’s Jon’s anchor and partner.”
A flash of relief went through Hall as he extended a hand. “Mr. Havili. If you’re here, then our electronics are safe, I take it?”
“Not completely,” Donovan answered neutrally, as he accepted the handshake. “Jon’s still got the touch of death. But I’ll run interference for him and try to safeguard things as much as I can.”
That wasn’t what Hall had hoped for and he flicked a grimace in my direction. “Ah. I guess that was hopeful thinking. Still, glad you’re here.”
Ever feel like an absolute pariah? I hated it, even if I understood why, and I could tell Donovan didn’t care for this attitude either. He kept flashing indignation, although he bit his tongue, holding the words in check. I didn’t think that would last long. As patient as he was, my lover was highly defensive of me.
Jim, thankfully, kept going, smoothing over that blip. “And this is Garrett Wilson. He’s our new police consultant. We hired him yesterday. He’s here to meet people and get some experience in.”
The two men shook hands cordially enough, then Hall waved us to the table. “I sent you a basic summary, but let me give you the exact details of the case.”
We all found places around the table, and I pulled out a notebook from my messenger bag, intending to take notes on the case. It would help me in interviews later if I had something to refer to. We all sat in computer chairs, cushy and comfortable, which was good. We’d likely be in them for a while.
With us settled, Hall went into a sort of parade rest, his hands gesturing as he spoke. “On June 7th, our unknown subject first approached a woman by the name of Wendy Anderson. She had no idea he was behind her; in fact, she didn’t even catch a glimpse of the man. She works at Think Thrive, a digital marketing firm, as one of their designers. She was walking to her car at roughly six o’clock in the evening when he struck her sharply on the back of the head with that axe handle.”
We all looked at what he pointed to. A trace of blood stained the meatier end of the stick, dark now, and preserved in a clear evidence bag.
“June 7th,” Garrett mused. “Still plenty bright out at six in the evening. No one saw anything?”
“Most of the business sections close down by five. Only the restaurants and shops are still open, and she was coming out of the back end of the building to the parking lot,” Hall said, a grudging respect for the astute question faintly echoing along his meridian lines. “No cameras out there, either. She blacked out for a few minutes, we believe. A colleague found her shortly afterwards sprawled out on the pavement, called 911. It took her a while to piece together she’d been attacked, it was so sudden, and she had no memory of why she was down for the count.”
“That’s not unusual,” Jim said. “If she had a concussion—and I assume she, did if he cracked her skull hard enough to make her bleed—then she likely wouldn’t have any memory of what happened to her.”
“Unfortunately true.” Hall seemed both peeved and resigned to that fact. “Since then, we’ve had an escalating case of assault and battery. A dozen victims so far, stretching out since that first case, with no rhyme or reason we can detect. Or any pattern, for that matter. The women are of all ages and types—African American, Hispanic, Caucasian, barely adults, middle-aged women, one senior woman. You name it, they’ve been victims of this man. We’ve had one partial witness. Abigail Carter caught a glimpse of his feet after he hit her. She was flat on the pavement and on the verge of passing out, but she claims he was wearing threadbare jeans and scuffed black work boots. Swears the feet were too large to be a woman’s.”
“Hence your assertion that this is likely a male attacker?” I couldn’t help but ask. “There’s no other clues than that?”
Hall’s meridian line turned a sort of putrid color as irritation blended with forced patience and dislike. Well, at least he didn’t hate my guts. I had to take any silver lining I could get, here. In a careful tone, he said, “Our profiler maintains that this is very likely a male attacker for several psychological reasons, but also because of the angle of the attack. The attacker is taller than every victim, and one of our victims is five-foot-nine—rather tall for a woman. We judge him to be between six-foot-two and six-foot-four.”
That did make it seem more likely the attacker was male. Not that women weren’t that tall, but it was rare. Probability dictated it wasn’t female.
“Our first murdered victim was our senior citizen,” Hall picked back up smoothly, regarding the table in general. “Emily Evans. I’m not sure if she would have died, really, except for a string of bad luck. Her bones were already fragile due to her health, and when he hit her, her head struck a lamppost on the way down. But her death seemed to flip some sort of switch in this guy. His last two victims were hit with fireplace pokers. Sabrina Phillips died two days after his attack from hemorrhaging in the brain. Nina Mitchell died on scene. I’ve got one more victim, Alicia Perez, who’s still in a coma at the hospital.”
“Any clues from the timing of the attacks?” Jim asked, also making his own notes in a spiral notebook.
“None. He strikes at all times of the week, generally after five o’clock. He’s even gotten one person on a Saturday, so he’s not sticking to a work week. We’ve cautioned people to be alert, to not walk to a car alone, but he still manages to find victims in camera blind spots on a regular basis. Bad enough we lost three women to this douchebag; I don’t want to lose anymore. Work your magic, that’s all I ask.”
Carol exchanged a look with me, but there wasn’t much I could do at this point except go level three on the coma victim and see if she remembered anything. And I really, really didn’t want to do that for multiple reasons. Odds weren’t good she’d seen anything, to start with, and it would put me out of commission for several days if I went that deep. That was very much a last resort. Our game plan for this hadn’t changed, and I gave her a nod to go ahead and take lead on this.
“I know it’s something of a long shot,” Carol said, waving a hand toward the evidence bags, “but I’ll do a reading on all of these and see if we can’t narrow things down a little. If we can at least get a store he’s buying stuff from, maybe you can go through their records from the past two months and get a list of possible suspects.”
“I’ll take anything at this point.” Hall zeroed in on me. Even though he kept his face admirably straight, he couldn’t hide his real reaction from my eyes. He did not like having to speak to me directly. “And what will you be doing?”
“Playing witness fo
r her—” I indicated Carol “—to preserve the chain of evidence. When we get those possible suspects, I’ll sit in on interviews and give you insights.”
“I want you to read the coma patient,” Hall said impatiently.
Donovan cut in, sharp and hard, before I could get a word out. “No. That will lay him out flat for three days.”
“And odds are she didn’t see anything helpful, anyway,” I added, getting impatient myself. Hall knew very well how this worked; I’d explained it to him often enough on previous cases. He always pushed for me going deeper, never respecting my limits and not caring what it did to me afterwards. He wasn’t the type of man who liked psychics much, felt we were more like tools than people.
Hall stared at Donovan hard. “You’re not just his anchor.”
“And?” Donovan arched an eyebrow in challenge. “What’s your point, Detective?”
“Alright, stop.” Jim lifted both hands in a staying motion, equal parts exasperated and irritated. “Hall. We’re here to help, not discuss relationships. I respect what Donovan and Jon are saying. We have no idea how quickly we’ll need Jon’s talents for interviews, and I don’t want to drive him that far unless there is good reason. This situation doesn’t qualify. Let’s keep that ace up our sleeve for now. Is there any other information you can tell us right now?”
Seething, Hall gritted out between clenched teeth, “I disagree. If he’s reacting as a boyfriend instead of an anchor—”
“Speaking as an anchor myself,” Sharon cut in sharply, growing more incensed with every word, “it doesn’t matter what their relationship is. We are not just duty-bound to protect them. We do this because their safety and sanity are our priority. If you demanded Carol do something so debilitating that it would give her a migraine for three days, I would not be nearly as polite as Donovan is right now.”
Hall did not like being shut down like this; I could almost hear his molars grinding. “Fine. I’ll drop this. For now. But if you don’t give me leads to follow by the end of the week, you’re going to scan that coma patient. And no, I have nothing else to tell you.”
“I brought EMP shield cases with me,” Sho said, his soft tenor rough with a distinct edge of anger. “Let me know who else is working this case; I’ll help them protect their gear.”
“Fine, come with me.” Without a backwards look, Hall opened the door and stalked out of the room.
Grimacing at me, Sho got up and followed, his steps quick and light. I sent a silent prayer winging after him. He would no doubt hear many a complaint about how people had to shield against me. Again.
“Wow.” Garrett spoke in a loud whisper, staring at the open door incredulously. “You ever meet someone and want to buy them a taser for their bathtub?”
I couldn’t help but laugh, and I wasn’t the only one. “Garrett. That is the best way to put that, seriously.”
Shaking his head, Garrett confessed, “I thought maybe you guys were blowing things out of proportion. Just a little bit of a tall tale, you know? I think you were underselling it a mite, now. Tell you what, let me go help Sho. Maybe prevent him from murdering anyone. Gotta be bad, murdering someone inside a police station.”
“Go,” Jim encouraged him.
I didn’t think that was the only reason Garrett wanted to go with Sho but bit my tongue. No matter the reason, it would be helpful for Sho if he had another set of hands. And the sooner he could get that done, the sooner he could set up the camera to help us record Carol’s readings.
“I’m going to see if Hall actually requested consent from the family to do a deep reading on that coma patient,” Jim announced, suspicion gleaming. “If he has, I’ll do what I can to nip that in the bud. Stay in here as much as possible, alright?”
I was a-okay with all of that, but pitched in as he left the table, “Grab at least one officer for us. We’ll need a witness.”
“Sure, I’ll send someone to you,” Jim promised, legs stretching out as he went into a speed walk.
With only psychics and anchors left, I shared a commiserating look with all of them. “It could be worse?”
“I don’t know how just now, but sure, I guess it could be worse,” Sharon grumbled. “Seriously, that is not the attitude you use when asking someone for a favor.”
“Babe.” Donovan jerked his chin toward the other side of the wall, indicating the detective who had left. “Is he homophobic? Was that what he was getting at?”
I had a feeling if I said yes, Hall would go squish. Donovan’s protective instincts were steadily climbing. “No, not really. He was just trying to argue us into submission. Don’t worry about that; we won’t get much trouble about it here.”
“Not on that issue, at least,” Carol sighed in agreement. “Come on, help me clear the table and get things set up. The sooner we can get out of here, the better.”
6
I took Jon out of the precinct for lunch, which everyone appreciated. Different people wanted different things, so we all split up for lunch. I’d discovered a Mission BBQ up here and really wanted to go. They treated veterans well, and their barbeque was amazing, so I hit the place up often whenever I was in the right vicinity. It was a good excuse to give us an hour break from being at that hostile station. Jon didn’t even care what we ate, as long as we left for a little while.
The restaurant didn’t house many electronics Jon might put in jeopardy, but we chose to eat outside, our chairs pulled in close together. It was a gorgeous summer day, not too humid or sweltering, with a light breeze to take the edge of heat off. Jon gets this little furrow in between his eyebrows when a headache’s brewing, but he gradually lost it as we sat outside, quietly enjoying our food. The space and quiet gave his body a chance to shed the stress and tension of this morning.
“You’re right,” he finally said to me, finishing up the last of his fries. “This place is good. We got one in Nashville?”
“Not that I know of. There’s one in Murfreesboro, though. That’s closer.”
“We might need to make this a favorite place.”
That made me happy, as I was always down for barbeque. “Sounds good to me. Oh, forgot to tell you. I got a text from my brother earlier. He wants to fly in and visit for a few days. When’s a good time for him to do that?”
Jon had never met Brandon, and his head came up, expression intrigued. “Labor Day weekend, maybe? That’s next month.”
“If he orders tickets now, he might have a chance at getting a decent price. Okay, I’ll suggest that weekend.” I was really happy at the prospect, as I hadn’t seen my little brother face to face in over a year. Brandon had come in to check up on me several times when I was still in rehab, but we hadn’t really crossed paths often after that.
Jon moved his chair in closer so he could snuggle into my side, his head against my shoulder. He liked to cuddle, which pleased me immensely, but he rarely did it so openly in public. He had certain limits on what he felt comfortable doing out in the open. I respected those limits, always would, but when he started to break his own habits? That was my signal something else was going on.
I paused with my hand lingering on the black plastic cup, putting my free arm around his shoulders. “You okay, babe?”
“Today was so much better than the last time we were here,” he sighed, his arms tightening around my waist a fraction, eyes slipping closed. “Thank you.”
I couldn’t imagine it being worse. I’d never had to work in such a hostile environment before. Not without people actively shooting at me, at least. Just being in that building was draining. “You’re welcome, but you know you don’t have to thank me for that.”
“I was mostly thanking you for not going Hulk-smash on stupid people.”
“Ah.” That did put things into perspective, and I grinned down at his head. “You can see the Hulk rage building in me, eh?”
“Yeah. So thanks for being forbearing.”
I hugged him a little closer and settled with him, letting warm sunligh
t dance around us. It felt healing, just sitting there with him. We were pretty busy people, and often it meant running around like chickens with our heads cut off, so I enjoyed moments like this where I could just sit with him and be.
“After working with him most of the morning, I see why you missed Garrett and wanted him here,” Jon added without any segue. “He’s this interesting mix of classroom clown and dangerous killer. He keeps you laughing even as he defends the perimeter.”
“Yeah, he’s been that way as long as I’ve known him. It’s a great balance of having comic relief and backup at the same time.” It was the first time Jon had said anything about Garrett to me, and even now I felt like there was something he wasn’t sharing. Maybe I needed to prod a little. “So you like him?”
He nodded, rubbing his cheek against my shirt. “He’s fun. I think we’ll get along great. I’m just…” He trailed off before finally asking, “Full truth?”
Why would he ask that? Jon was normally the type to just spit stuff out. And there wasn’t anything about my relationship with Garrett that would make him…pause…oh shit. I went taut as I realized there was a little something I probably should have discussed with him before Garrett arrived on scene.
“Yeah, babe, I can see that the two of you were together at one point,” Jon said dryly, finally lifting his head and pinning me in place with those baby blues.
Dammit. Ever get that feeling you’ve got one foot in a grave, the other on a banana peel? “It’s not at all what you’re thinking. We didn’t date, not once.”
“Friends with benefits, then?” The careful way he’d arranged his face masked all emotion.
