by A.M. Burns
4
Detective Pearson led us to a classic police conference room, furnished in white austerity with a couple of chairs and a table. Thankfully, he’d listened to my request for a private conversation, so there weren’t any mirrors or cameras in the room. The table was a bit on the battered side, but the Dallas Police Department’s budget was tight and new tables were low on the priority list. I’d have to take measures to ensure our conversation didn’t carry out to the officer at the door.
“These rooms are always charming.” Dusty chuckled as we pulled up chairs that were only slightly more comfortable than the chairs at Detective Pearson's desk.
“Your tax dollars at work,” Pearson smiled back as the door reopened. It’s been said before and will be said many times more, no one looks good in the penal system’s bright orange jumpsuits. On Alexia Rosenbloom, it leached all the color out of her face, leaving what perhaps had been a light olive complexion looking drawn and pasty. Her long dark hair was plastered to her skull and her lifeless brown eyes were puffy and red. She’d obviously been crying. She wasn’t manacled or restrained in any way, but her head hung down and she shuffled her feet as she walked across the floor. It didn’t take a telepath to know that this young woman felt defeated.
“I'll be right outside the door if you need anything,” Pearson said. He motioned the uniformed officer to follow him out of the room.
“Thanks Steven,” I smiled, pushing him mentally, just a little, not to hear anything that happened in the room. Dusty made a sealing mark on the door with his right hand, whispering the spell to prevent anyone from eavesdropping on our conversation, accidentally or otherwise.
“Ms. Rosenbloom, I’m Ethan Peters and this is my partner, Dusty Davenport,” I said, consciously trying to calm her. “We’re investigating the death of Magee Reyes.”
Alexia looked up, confusion written on her tired features. “Magee's death? But what about what I just did to poor Barry? Doesn't anyone care about Barry?” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Even in death, everything’s still about Magee. I’m sick to death about that bitch! Everything was always about her and it still is. If she weren’t already dead, I'd fucking kill the bitch myself.” Her dry voice broke and she collapsed as she covered her face in her hands and sobbed.
With a question in his eye, Dusty glanced at me. I knew he was asking permission to console the girl. He knew I held myself distant enough from most things that I’d be of little use in calming her. He’s the more emotional and comforting of us. Sometimes I think it’s him being a wer. They’re much more touchy-feely than everyone else. I've always been a bit distant, hiding behind shields designed to keep people's thoughts and feeling at bay, but while that coping mechanism protected me from the bad, it also cut me off from the good. That and I just couldn’t stand a crying woman. Even when it wasn’t an act as in this case, it just got on my nerves something fierce.
Dusty walked to the other side of the table and put his muscular arm across her heaving shoulders. I just barely heard his soft words as he stroked her hair and told her it’d be okay. After several minutes, her sobs subsided and Dusty calmed her enough that we could get back to interviewing her. Luckily, the room was equipped with a box of tissues so she could dry her eyes, blow her nose and wipe her face before we continued.
“Okay, let’s talk about Barry,” I suggested after the last tissue dropped on the table.
“Barry’s a great guy. He treated me so great and I’m going to miss him something awful.” Tears threatened to spill out again and she paused to take a couple of deep breaths.
“Like I told the police, I don't remember what happened with Barry,” she said. “The last thing I remember we were watching TV at his place. We both had the day off and we were just hanging out. He’d gone into the kitchen to get us Cokes when someone knocked on the door. Since he was in the kitchen, I just answered the door. That was around noon. Then the next thing I know, the police were there putting the handcuffs on me and reading me my rights. The baseball bat he always kept by the door lay on the floor covered in blood and I had blood all over my hands and clothes.” Her voice started to crack again.
That gut feeling any good investigator develops told me there was more going on here, and if I could figure out what, I might have the answer to what happened to Magee Reyes. I don’t believe in coincidences. This young woman’s missing time and Magee Reyes thinking she’d taken one nerve pill with water when she really took multiple pain killers with alcohol was too big a coincidence to be a coincidence in my mind.
“Do you remember anything unusual about the person at the door, anything at all?” Dusty's soft voice tried to coach a memory out of her.
She started to answer and then looked like there was something or someone standing behind Dusty. “No Grandma not now,” she whispered then rubbed her head.
“Did you just say Grandma?” I asked. Did I hear her right? Was she speaking to the ghost of her dead grandmother?
The girl looked a bit sheepish and started to shrink back in on herself.
Dusty patted her arm and nodded a silent approval.
“Yeah, you see, I can see and hear spirits sometimes,” she said in little more than a whisper. “My Grandma’s with me all the time, well unless my mom’s done something mean to me and then she’s harassing my mother.”
My mind raced a bit. If this girl were truly a medium, she could provide an investigative tool I desperately needed. She and the spirits around her might be able to solve the whole thing for me. “Did your grandmother see anything today while you were with Barry?”
Alexia looked confused for a moment. “Slow down Grandma. I have to translate. She speaks in a combination of Yiddish and Spanish, when she’s excited like she is now it can be a bit hard to translate.”
She concentrated again while we sat in silence. “Okay, the best I can make out, she said when I answered the door, some kind of fog rolled over me. She could barely see me through the fog, but she could see the bat hitting Barry. She said one of the neighbors came over and saw what was happening and called the police. After the police arrived the fog blew away.”
“So something covered your spirit for a while?” I’d have to hit the books, or get Tiffany to do it for me, to see what we could find out about things that covered someone's spirit enough to cause blackouts.
“That's what it sounds like,” Dusty agreed.
Alexia nodded.
“Alexia, Ms. Rosenbloom, do you have a lawyer yet?” I still wanted to get to the subject of Magee Reyes, but if she didn’t have a lawyer, I could get the Council to send one over. If she were a medium, they’d help get her out and cover up as much as possible to keep her safe.
She looked thoughtful. “Mom’s said she’d call the one that her boyfriend uses when he gets in trouble, but so far not.”
“Give me a sec.” I pulled out my cell phone and called Carmine.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hey Carmine, how soon can you get a good lawyer over to the downtown police station?”
“Ethan, if you’ve gotten yourself thrown in jail again, you can just sit there. We had another OD reading a couple of hours ago and Tiffany said you’re too busy to investigate.” She sounded more than slightly irritated.
“Look Carmine, I am sure that Tiffany will get me the information you surely sent her on that and I will look at it when I get back to the office. And no I’m not the one in jail. I‘ve found a new medium who’s in need a bit of help.”
“Oh, and what did this new medium do to get thrown in jail?” Although her mood had shifted, it was still on the short side; however, a pinch of curiosity spiced her loud note of skepticism. True mediums were rare. The Council would verify her abilities and get her safely under their wings.
“Not much. She just killed her boyfriend with a baseball bat,” I replied, somehow keeping a straight face.
“Tell her for me, ‘You Go Girlfriend,’ and I'll have someone there within the hour. Tell her not to talk to anyone else befo
re they get there. It’ll probably be William.”
Carmine’s a bit of a man basher, but she sounded a bit too gleeful about the situation for my taste. “Thanks Carmine. We'll get on to the other stuff as soon as I get back to the office.”
“You do that, Peters.” Her sternness returned as she hung up the phone.
I turned back to Alexia and Dusty. “Okay someone’s on the way, probably William Cromly.”
“Oh good, William’s a great lawyer, one of the best we know,” said Dusty, assuring Alexia. “He's also a good friend of mine.”
William’s a werewolf, one of the few members of the local pack who welcomed Dusty with open arms. Werewolves, like a lot of other people, have issues with same-sex relationships, in their case it’s mainly because most gay men didn’t have children. The conflict there is that there are two kinds of werecreatures, ones that are born and ones that are made. Dusty’s a born werewolf and most werewolves felt that he should find a female mate, settle down and pass on his genes. His family was killed a couple of years back by a rouge pack during a big upheaval right before we met. After we met but before we moved in together, Dusty compromised and acted as a sperm donor to help one of the other genetic pairs have kids. That satisfied a few of the wolves like William, but others in the local pack held fast to their beliefs and still just barely tolerated him. Our relationship, which they saw as a mixed marriage, only made things worse, but at least they allow him come to pack functions. His son, who was just now one, is really cute for a kid. We’re lucky that the parents want Dusty in his life.
“Thanks,” Alexia said softly.
“Hey no problem, you look like a nice kid who can use a bit of help here,” I responded, deciding to wait for a more secure place to fill her in about the Council. “So what more can you tell us about Magee Reyes?”
“Well, Magee had some real issues. I mean she was nice enough at first. She’s the one that set up the meetings and posted them online so the community could come together, particularly those of us who didn't have any connection to anyone else. She had it all so well organized at first with the sign-in sheet, the name badges and the really cool handouts. At first she seemed to have it all together, a nice happy life and a loving husband, but she’s also agoraphobic. She wouldn’t leave the house for the longest time unless her husband was with her. During this time she decided to put together the coven. We all loved the idea. So many of us never had anyone else to talk to about the Wiccan way of life, or to try spells out and just lots of other fun things. We were like a little family. Then Barry developed a crush on Mad. Being the manipulative bitch we realized she was, Mad basically led him along until he couldn't take it anymore. She just tore him apart emotionally.”
“And who is Mad?” I asked, trying to clarify the people involved.
“Madeline Fort. Most people call her Maddie, but Barry and I started calling her Mad after everything that she put him through. But then if she hadn’t put him through everything she did, we probably wouldn’t have gotten together. The past couple of weeks have been great except for all the emails.”
“Who was sending the emails?” I asked.
“Magee was. She sent a couple every day. Sometimes she was trying to get Barry and me to come back to the coven, and sometimes she’d just rant at him or me. It was normally him, but she flipped back and forth so often, it was a little scary. I’m thankful we got away from that shit and I am not sorry that she’s dead.”
“So from what you remember, was there any one person that showed up around the time she went from nice to crazy?” I asked, very pleased so far with the information that we were getting and the fact that it matched so well with the behavior of Magee’s wraith.
Alexia thought about it for a moment and shook her head. “Not that I can recall, but there’ve been so many new people in the community meetings lately. Magee was always getting new people who responded to the website she set up, and then after the newspaper article on her, we got even more people. It’s not uncommon for there to be thirty or forty people at one of the community meetings. Barry’s supposed to oversee the meeting tonight since Magee wasn’t going to be there.”
“There’s a meeting tonight?” It looked like I was going to get back to the office later than I had planned.
“Sure, every Friday night at Trail Dusters Cappuccino and Milkshake Bar over on Elm Street. I was looking forward to going since Magee’s gone and Mad’s backed out without her friend to support her.” She looked a bit sad about missing the meeting. “It's been a few weeks since I've seen everyone. I'm sure they are going to be more than a little upset tonight.”
“What time is the meeting?” I knew where Trail Dusters was. They made one of the best milkshakes in town.
“They normally start around seven, but most people don't get there until seven thirty or so. You know, Wiccan standard time.” She smiled slightly at the old joke that excused people from not keeping track of time. I knew Wiccans’ inability to be anywhere on time was one of the many things Tiffany didn’t like about them.
I glanced at my watch. Six thirty. “So this group welcomes new people?”
“Sure, everyone’s always welcomed with open arms. Well unless you piss off Magee or show up strung-out on something, then she’d ask you not to come back unless you had something to offer her. There’s this one guy, totally incredible drummer, Jet. He’s stoned all the time. It never really showed because that was his normal. None of us ever saw him not stoned, but because he was such an awesome drummer, she kept him around. That, and the fact that her husband’s a little pothead, too. If she kicked Jet out for pot, she’d be a hypocrite. But based on the way she was acting lately, being a hypocrite would not bother her for long.”
I was beginning to wonder if everyone else in this community group felt the same way as Alexia. If so, the list of people that wouldn’t mind killing her would be a long one, indeed.
“Alexia, you’ve been a big help. William should be here soon and be able to arrange bail for you. In the meantime, don’t talk to anyone else. Have him give you my card when you get out and give me a call, so I can get with you again if I need anything more.” I headed toward the door to let Steven know we were finished for now.
Dusty gave Alexia a big hug and I heard him tell her things are going to be okay now. She looked grateful for the reassurance and told him that her grandmother said thanks. It’d be nice if I could deal with spirits without casting a circle so I could confirm Grandma was there. Just then, a chill hit me and reminded me that, at times, spirits have their own ways of making their presence felt.
Dusty fell into step with me as we walked down the long steps of the police station toward the street where we’d left the car. “She had the same smell on her that Barry had on him, but a lot stronger,” he said softly, “almost like she had taken a bath in it.”
“I bet it has something to do with that fog her grandmother saw covering her,” I replied. I pulled out my phone to call Tiffany and get her to work on getting info for me on spirits that leave an elfin smell behind.
