Playing With Fire

by Dirk Greyson

  “I’d appreciate that.” He had to admit that those were the same things he had been thinking.

  “I’d also go on to say that your killer is smart and methodical, judging by the lack of evidence. It’s difficult and takes planning to not leave behind anything of yourself at a crime scene. But I get the feeling there’s more to it than that. I’d need to look deeper to be able to come up with a next move.”

  “All right. Then I’ll see you tomorrow at the station.” Jim handed Barty one of his cards. “I’ll be there by seven.”

  “That late? I get up at five thirty and can be there by six. That way I’ll miss the traffic.”

  “All right, six,” Jim said. This case was going to require extra hours, so they might as well get started. He just hadn’t expected Barty to want to get there that early. “I’ll see you then, and we’ll have everything we have available to you. But….”

  “Yes, I know. This is confidential, and I mustn’t speak with anyone about it.” Barty stood and opened the door. Jim walked out, and a young girl—about twenty, with long brown hair in a ponytail—stepped in after him.

  “Yes, Carry Ann,” Barty said in the same way he’d greeted Jim.

  Jim stood off to the side and checked his messages.

  “I know my assignment was late, but my mother went into the hospital and I had to help take care of her. She’s better now, and I’m caught up, so I’m just asking for a little leniency.”

  “But you were late, and I told you at the beginning of the semester that I don’t accept late work under any circumstances,” Barty said as though it were the most logical thing in the world.

  “I got everything caught up, and my mother nearly died. It was less than a day, and I sent it to you. I missed class because of it and….” Her voice broke.

  “But it was still late,” Barty said, clearly confused.

  “My mother nearly died….” Carry Ann sniffled, and Jim could almost see the scene in Barty’s office.

  “The assignment was late, and I clearly told everyone….”

  “I work hard, and I participate in class while the others just sit there, and I always do extra work. You know that.” She was making a very good case. “Can’t you have a heart?”

  Jim waited for Barty’s answer.

  “Of course I could. But this….” Barty stopped, and Jim would have loved to have seen his expression just to learn a little more about him. “All right. I’ll accept the assignment this time, but not again. And you must never tell anyone, or else they will all require the same treatment.” That confusion was clear in Barty’s voice once again, like he didn’t understand the need for this conversation in the first place. “I’ll return your assignment with the others at our next class.”

  “Thank you,” Carry Ann said with relief, and Jim continued down the hall, feeling bad that he’d listened in while at the same time wondering about what he’d heard. Marilyn was right: meeting Barty Halloran was an experience, and he wondered what working with the cute professor was going to be like.

  Jim stopped in his tracks. How in the hell had the word cute slipped into his head? He groaned and pushed it aside. He wasn’t going to go there, not again. There had been one too many geeky professors in his life already. Jim texted Marilyn, who met him outside the building.

  “How did it go with him?” She was smiling slightly.

  Jim blinked. “He’s… different.”

  “To say the least. I don’t have a great deal of contact with people from other departments, but I’ve crossed paths with Barty a few times. He’s brilliant and completely clueless when it comes to people.”

  “Like Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory?”

  Marilyn shook her head. “I don’t think so. He just doesn’t get other people.” She motioned them ahead. “We aren’t friends or anything, but Brian and I were at a party with him….” She paused as she thought. “About eighteen months ago, I guess. It was a graduation cocktail party of some sort, and he was there. Stood in the corner the entire time, watching everyone. I’d met him so I went to say hi, and he looked at me like he was lost and didn’t quite know what to do. He answered my questions, but he never initiated anything and seemed to feel… relieved once the conversation was over. He’s a nice enough man and isn’t obnoxious, just clueless when it comes to interactions with others that aren’t academic in nature.”

  “I don’t get it. How can a psychology professor not get other people?”

  “It’s academic. He studies behavior and how others think, but has no tools to interact directly with them. It’s like some part of him is missing in a way. Like he never learned how to interact with people socially. Maybe that’s why he went into the field he did, so he could try to learn. I don’t know. But he’s one of those people that you want to know why he does what he does and what makes him tick. Maybe you can figure it out when you work with him.”

  “Not likely,” Jim said. “I mean, he seemed okay, just a little on the strange side. But then again, we’re after a killer who shoots people on the street, so maybe it will take a strange guy to find this psycho.”

  “You never know,” Marilyn said with one of her weird smiles. She hugged him again, and Jim had to be careful not to hurt her. She always seemed like she would break in his arms. “Don’t be a stranger. Okay?” She stepped away, and Jim hurried to his car and headed back to the station.

  He walked into near pandemonium.

  “Get in here,” Captain Westin said as soon as Jim got to his desk. Officers scurried out of the way as they walked through the station, and Jim closed the door behind him. “I received a message while you were out.” He turned his computer monitor around and pressed Play.

  “I see you’re getting nowhere, and you aren’t going to. I can get to anyone at any time.” The voice was distorted somehow, so Jim leaned forward. “If you want the shootings to stop, you’re going to have to figure out what I want and then give it to me. The best you can hope for is that I’ll go back to my life.” The recording stopped.

  There had been few times in Jim’s life when he’d come face-to-face—or, in this case, voice-to-voice—with evil. He’d met plenty of murderers and thieves, but mostly they were crimes of opportunity or passion. This was someone who killed for sport, to send some obscure message.

  “Jesus. How was it delivered?”

  “To my voice mail. We’ve already traced the call to a phone that’s no longer active. We’re trying to trace the call back to a location, but only have a general area.”

  A knock sounded, and then the door cracked open. “Here’s the report you wanted. The phone was sold at a Walmart.”

  “Find out which store and see if they’ll cooperate. We might be able to trace it back through their systems to a purchase date, and then we can see if we get the guy on camera.” Jim was hopeful for the first time since this investigation began.

  “They can’t. They sell these by the hundreds, and they come with a certain number of minutes already on them. There’s no activation, and once the minutes are used, they can buy more, but this guy will probably dump it if he hasn’t already and just buy another.”

  “Try to track it anyway until we’re sure the trail is dead and cold,” Jim said, and Captain Westin agreed, even though the officer was probably right and this was another dead end.

  The officer nodded and closed the door behind him.

  “Did you have any luck?”

  “I have a possible expert coming in tomorrow. A psychology professor from Dutton,” Jim said.

  “What’s he like?”

  The first thought that came to his mind was geeky-hot, but he wasn’t going to tell his captain that. He liked his job. “Weird.”

  “How so?”

  “I can’t describe it. But the guy is a little off in some ways.”

  “Is he what we need to solve the case?” Captain Westin asked, and Jim thought for a few seconds before nodding slowly.

  “He may be exactly what we need.” Jim was
beginning to wonder. Their killer was a lot of things, and off his nut was definitely one of them. Maybe it took a weird professor to catch a bizarre killer. They definitely had one of those.

  “What do you have planned next?”

  “I need to get everything together that we have on each killing so I can present it to Barty when he gets here tomorrow morning at six.” Jim watched Captain Westin’s eyebrows rise. “It seems that’s the time he likes to start work.”

  “Okay, then.” The phone rang, and he groaned and motioned Jim out of the office. “This isn’t going to be pretty. The mayor’s going to chew me out.”

  Jim left and shut the door as the screaming came through the phone. Why politicians figured yelling at people was going to make things come together faster was beyond him.

  As he sat at his desk and woke his computer, Paul Carlson came over. “What can I do to help? I finished getting all of the evidence cataloged and logged into the system, and the statements are coming in.”

  “Go ahead and organize them. I have some help coming in tomorrow, and I want to get everything together.”

  “What kind of help?”

  Jim looked up from his screen. “That’s yet to be seen.” He raised his eyebrows, and Paul rolled his eyes and they got to work.

  It took hours to gather the evidence and data on the crime scenes. Though it was organized and cataloged, much of the knowledge was in Jim’s head, so he did his best to get his thoughts and suspicions down on paper. He also made sure that everything was easily accessible, and then he reviewed the entire case once again just to make sure he hadn’t missed any connections.

  IT WAS dark and late by the time he left the station. Jim got into his Escape, drove home, and pulled into the house he’d inherited from his grandfather. The thing was a huge pile of stone and Tudor beams, leaded glass windows, and heavy oak doors, surrounded by huge trees and a massive carpet of green. His grandfather had left him the property and a trust to manage and maintain it because it had been Jim’s favorite place in the whole world growing up. He still loved it, but a whole lot less now that it was his responsibility, along with the all the contents.

  He pulled into the garage and crossed the parklike walk to the back door. He unlocked it, deactivated the alarm, and went inside the huge, otherwise empty house. “Sometimes I expect you to be here to greet me, Grandpa,” Jim said. He had to make some noise, or the place would weigh him down. To say it was too big for one person was an understatement. Twelve could live here and rarely see each other, he swore, but didn’t intend to find out.

  His phone rang as he emptied his pockets and set everything on the counter. Glancing at the display, he girded his loins for whatever onslaught was coming. “Hi, Deidre.”

  “I heard there was another one today. Have you come to your senses yet and decided to give up this whole Sherlock Holmes thing you have going on and join the rest of us?”

  God, she could be a complete witch with a capital B sometimes.

  “Not all of us can exist in the rarified world of economics,” he retorted. “I like my job, and I’m going to catch whoever is doing this. So did you only call to be a pain in the ass, or was there something else? It’s late, I’m tired, and I have a huge day tomorrow.”

  She responded as though the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. “I called because I was promoted a few weeks ago. I’m the new head of the Economics department at Templeton. They announced it a while ago, and Franklin and I are throwing a party to celebrate. It’s Sunday afternoon in the backyard of the house. Rain or shine. We’ll be having a canopy put up just in case.”

  The weather certainly should never compromise one of Deidre’s social engagements. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you. I’ll try to come. Text me the time, and if I can get a few hours away, I’ll be there.”

  That huff came through the line again—one that said the entire world should get out of the way of his younger sister. His parents had spoiled her rotten. Not only was she the only daughter, but the youngest as well, and she was used to getting exactly what she wanted. His parents had more than seen to that.

  “It’s the best I can do at this point.”

  “Fine. You know if you got a job befitting your status, you would be able to move in social circles without….”

  “Quit being a shit,” Jim said in his best police officer tone. “You have no right to act that way, missy, and don’t think I’m going to stand for the attitude the way Dad and your husband do. I changed your diapers, and so help me, I can tell all of your so-called society a hell of a lot of things about Deidre Crawford-Grinnell.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said, scandalized.

  “Don’t try me. I may carry a gun, but you’ve spent enough time around horses to know that if you spread the manure, eventually you’re going to step in it, and I can see to it that it’s up to your ears. Now I’ll be there if I can, but there are to be no snide comments about my job or my life. You have a pool, and I can still pick you up and throw you in.”

  She gasped. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Then don’t give me a reason,” he countered, and Deidre grew quiet.

  “Fine. I know I was bitchy,” she said, and Jim waited, tapping his foot and silently counting to three. “Mindy and Meghan were asking if you’d be there, and they asked if they could go for a ride in your police car.”

  He’d been waiting for her to pull out the big guns, and his nieces were certainly that. Mindy was three and Meghan was four. They were bubbly and precious as all hell. “I’ll be there if I can. You saw the news, and this is my case, so I have to solve it. I’m bringing in a professor to help tomorrow.”

  “Not your ex-whatever…,” she said.

  “Garrett taught philosophy. He’d be as much help as you would. Hey, just think about it, I could bring you in when we need to interrogate suspects. You could lecture them on economic theory, and they’d confess out of boredom.”

  “Ass,” she countered, but Jim heard a smile in her tone.

  “I’ll call before Sunday to let you know what’s going on.”

  “Okay. Dress is garden party elegance.”

  “So the white tuxedo jacket,” he said.

  “Har-har. Just look really nice. There will be people there you can meet.” She ended the call, and Jim had to give her credit—she hung up before he could yell that she was not to try to fix him up with anyone. His family were the kings of social facades and living in denial. He’d had a partner for three years, and Jim had brought Garrett to a number of family functions. They had loved him. Garrett was a professor and looked the part, with his geeky sophistication and charm. Deidre had adored him, and they’d talked for hours about things that went over everyone else’s heads. Of course, that had been the point. Feeling superior was also a family trait.

  After the split, his family had somehow gotten it into their collective heads that Jim would start dating women. His mother had said, “The whole thing with men was a flop, so you should do what’s expected now. You need to marry, have children, and continue the family name and legacy. We were accepting while you were trying to figure things out, but it’s time to put all that behind you.” She’d glared at him in her blue-and-white Prada suit and from under a pair of sunglasses that would pay most people’s mortgage for a month.

  Of course Jim had done his best to make her understand, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears. He was the black sheep of his family. Not only was he gay, but he was a police officer as well. “At least become a lawyer if you want to go into the law,” his father had said. “You can parlay a law degree into a number of things that will open doors for you.”

  Jim had ignored it all and followed his own path, wondering if that had been what they truly hated. After all, society was definitely not filled with people who thought for themselves.

  Jim opened the freezer, pulled out a frozen dinner, and threw it into the microwave. He also made a small salad and carried his food into the den, closed the door, and
turned on the television. After eating, he put his dishes in the dishwasher and then went upstairs and down the almost cavernous hallway to his bedroom.

  This was the room he loved most in the house. It had been his grandparents’ bedroom, and it overlooked the backyard, with its flower gardens and paths between them, fountains, and everything else his grandmother had loved. Jim paid a fortune to keep it all in working order, and he loved every bit of it, especially on a night like this. He pushed up the window, letting the cool night air and the noise of water from the fountain drift into the room.

  Jim leaned on the windowsill, closed his eyes, and let the sound work its way into his soul. Lately he’d felt the damn thing getting blacker and colder as he saw more and more of the dark underbelly of humanity. That had been why he’d come back home to work. New Cynwood was supposed to be safe.

  He should have known better.

  Turning away, Jim went to his bathroom, stripped off his clothes, and stepped into the shower. He felt better once he’d washed off the grime of his day and then got into bed. This place was his refuge and sanctuary, but lately sleep eluded him each and every night. It had for a while, and long before the shootings had begun. At first he saw Garrett’s face in his dreams, when they still had their life together. Those had faded with time and had been replaced by images of the victims being shot on the street. A few times it had been Garrett being shot, and after those nightmares, he’d broken his own rule and called Garrett just to make sure he was truly okay. He hoped tonight would be one of the quiet ones because he desperately needed his sleep.

  As he settled down under the crisp, clean sheets, he closed his eyes. Within moments the image of a tall, lanky professor with his shirt buttoned all the way up and black-rimmed glasses came to mind. Jim groaned, punched his pillow, and rolled over, driving the image away.