The Rational Faculty (Hazard and Somerset: A Union of Swords Book 1)

by Gregory Ashe

  There you go, Hazard thought, staring at the TV, staring at the slice of pizza drooping in his hand, staring at nothing at all. Case closed.

  Somers’s phone dinged, and he wiped his hand on his jeans before tapping at the screen.

  Hazard went back to the dark maze of his thoughts. Case closed. Except, of course, that so many things didn’t make sense. The timeline, for example. Boyer put Jesse’s death at anywhere between two and six days; the range, she explained, was because the temperature in the trap room was inconsistent: hot when various furnaces and boilers and other assorted machines were running, and cool when they weren’t. Since nobody had been keeping track of the temperature, nobody knew how much the decomposition had been accelerated.

  Hazard jogged the limp slice of pizza in his hand, watching the pepperoni wobble. Two days, at the absolute minimum. Two days made it possible that Jesse had killed Carl Klimich, hanged him in a storage locker, and then gone back to the theater and jumped to his death. Barely possible. But who had closed the trap after he jumped? And what about Lena Brigaud? Who had attacked her? Cravens’s answer: the words in blood painted on her window, Bright Lights.

  Somers’s phone dinged again.

  Hazard looked over.

  Somers just shook his head.

  And it wasn’t just the timeline. What was Jesse Clark’s motivation? By all accounts, he had been fun, personable, happy. No history of violence. No history, of any kind, with Jim Fabbri except that brief conversation on the security video. Why would Jesse kill the young professor? And if Carl Klimich was some kind of mastermind—if Carl had orchestrated the whole thing, out of the desire for revenge or in hopes of claiming Jim’s job—why had Jesse turned on him? Cravens’s answers, again, were textbook: guilt or greed. Jesse had been so upset by what he had done that he had killed Carl and then himself. Or Carl hadn’t paid Jesse what he promised.

  Hazard had told Cravens exactly what he thought of those theories. That had been when Somers took Hazard out of the room. Dragged him, actually.

  Somers’s phone dinged again.

  “What the hell is going on?” Hazard said.

  “It’s just Twitter.”

  Hazard knew Somers well enough to recognize an evasion. He waited.

  “It’s Sackeman,” Somers said with a shrug. “It’s nothing.”

  “The Ozark Volunteer asshole we met at Paradise Valley?”

  “Technically, he’s a Bright Lights asshole.”

  “Same difference. What’s he saying?”

  Somers hesitated. “Let’s just leave it alone.”

  “What’s he saying?”

  “Shit.”

  “About us.”

  “About everything. Typical Ozark Volunteer shit.”

  “He’s not Ozark Volunteers,” Hazard said. “He’s Bright Lights. Tell me what he said.”

  Sighing, Somers picked up the phone. “Evil contains the seeds of its own destruction. #brightlights #fagtag #fabbrimurder.”

  Hazard laid the pizza back on his plate. “#fagtag?”

  “These assholes, they use that when they’re talking about an LGBT person getting killed.”

  “What else?”

  “Let’s just leave it, all right?”

  Hazard reached over and took his boyfriend’s phone. He read from the list of recent tweets. “Maybe now the Wahredua PD will stop harassing law-abiding citizens. #brightlights #fabbrimurder #vindicated.”

  “If I have to listen to this, I’m only eating pizza,” Somers said, standing and heading to the kitchen. “I can’t do this with salad in my stomach.”

  Hazard kept reading. “Wahredua PD doesn’t catch up to a GAY MURDERER until he’s already dead because they’re too busy bothering decent citizens. Two gay detectives. Coincidence? #brightlights #sodomitesamiright #needafagtagplease.” He looked up. “Jesus Christ, John, this guy is asking people to murder you and Dulac.”

  “Well, I don’t think a poorly formatted hashtag is much of a threat.”

  “You’re fucking right it’s a threat. I’m going to fucking drag this asshole through razorwire until this shit comes down. After all that fucking bullshit when he wanted to hire me—”

  “Ree,” Somers said, shaking his head. Then he held out his hand. “Phone, please?”

  Something about the way Somers was acting rang an alarm inside Hazard. “What is it?”

  “Sackeman just called on all loyal Nazis to try to kill me and my partner,” Somers said with a roll of his eyes. “Do I need something else?”

  “You’re trying to hide something.”

  “I feel like I’m doing a shit-poor job of it then.”

  Hazard glanced down at Somers’s phone.

  “Ree.” Somers swiped for the phone. “Come on. That’s all.”

  Holding the phone out of reach, Hazard scrolled down in the feed. He read aloud: “Disgraced WPD detective Emery Hazard threatened me with physical violence while trying to frame decent WHITE citizens for a murder. Hello, sheeple. A little justice, please? #sodomitesamiright #needafagtagplease #brightlights.”

  Somers dropped onto the sofa. He took a huge bite of pizza and watched Hazard with big eyes.

  “Should I keep going?” Hazard asked.

  “Since when does it matter what I think?” Somers took another bite, chewed, and swallowed.

  Hazard held on to the phone. His fingers were locked. His heart was hammering.

  “Sorry,” Somers said. “I just . . . I didn’t want you to see that. He has a few other posts. And there are a lot of comments. Mostly he’s mad about how the demonstration was handled—lots of claims of police brutality. Which, shit, he’s partially right. Hoffmeister was out of his damn mind and doing some serious police brutality. I don’t know about anyone else.”

  Slowly, stiffly, Hazard passed the phone back.

  “It doesn’t matter what he says,” Somers said. “You’re not a disgraced detective. He’s just a bigoted asshole with a social media account.”

  “And forty thousand followers.”

  “Fuck,” Somers said, picking off a piece of pepperoni. “I didn’t think you’d see that.”

  Hazard shook his head. “This is shit. Mitchell’s still missing. Rory and Phil are still missing. And the case, whatever we had of it, is a fucking sandcastle. I could knock the whole thing down just by breathing on it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s closed. We’re done.”

  “You’re done. I’ve got a missing client.”

  Somers shook his head. “It’s been a few bad days now. Let’s watch something. Let’s relax.”

  “Relax,” Hazard said.

  “I know it’ll be new for you, but give it a try.”

  Hazard gave him the finger and went over to the stack of documentaries he’d checked out from the library. “It’s my turn to pick.”

  “Never mind,” Somers said, dangling a piece of pepperoni before dropping it and catching it in his mouth. “I’ll just go back to working this impossible case.”

  “It’s my turn,” Hazard said. “You have to watch. But I’ll give you a choice: The Gall of Gaulle—that’s about post-World War II France—or Blood of My Blood: Exsanguinary Practices in Indigenous Ritual Performance. That one is supposed to be really good; it’s all about the different ways blood was used in religious practice.”

  Somers was dangling another piece of pepperoni, head cocked, ready to catch it. “Gee, sounds like a blockbuster. How’d you pick that one?”

  “Fabbri referenced it in one of his articles, and I thought it sounded interesting. It’s about ritual bloodletting in Aztec worship. He has this theory that the Spaniards adapted some of it to the celebration of the Mass, and from there it moved into the theater, and on stage the performers would—”

  “Right, Ree. Really interesting.” Somers dropped the pepperoni. Then, his whole body stiffened. He forgot about the pepperoni; it slapped the side of his face and slid off to land on
the coffee table.

  “Holy shit,” Somers said.

  “What?”

  “Holy shit, Ree.”

  “What?”

  “The blood on the knife. The adhesive. The fucking blood on the fucking knife.”

  Hazard heard plastic crack; he was holding the DVD case too tightly, but he didn’t care. Somers was transformed in front of him. The blond man looked lit up from the inside, his perfect features radiant, a huge, dumbass smile on his face. A thousand years ago, Hazard thought in a distant corner of his mind, men had seen angels like this.

  “Try full sentences,” Hazard said. “Unless you forgot how. Subject, predicate.”

  “I know how she did it,” Somers said.

  “Who?”

  But Somers was already racing to the door, grabbing his jacket and keys, and Hazard had to sprint after him.

  “Where the fuck are we going?”

  “The hospital,” Somers shouted back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  NOVEMBER 7

  WEDNESDAY

  8:19 PM

  THEY MADE ONE STOP, AND Somers knew he was right.

  At Wahredua Regional, Somers had to do some wrangling to get into the room. The nurses didn’t want to allow him inside, but they couldn’t exactly say no either. But the charge nurse, a dark-haired woman built like a battleship, made a whole song and dance out of objecting, insisting that the patients needed their rest, especially if this wasn’t an emergency. After flashing his badge and flashing a smile, and after a few easy answers to questions, Somers saw her soften, and the charge nurse asked him to wait while she checked on the patient. A minute later, she let herself out of the room, nodded at Somers, and glided away.

  When Somers walked into the room, Hazard behind him, he barely recognized Cynthia. Bandages wrapped her face, and between strips of gauze, bruises raised purple and yellow patches of skin. Even the eyes were different—half-closed, foggy with whatever dope they had her on. Her mouth twitched when she saw them, and it took Somers a moment to realize she was trying to smile.

  Somers sat in one of the molded plastic chairs and ran a hand through his hair. Inwardly, he was still thinking through everything, a last-minute check, everything in its place. The realization had come to him so suddenly and so unexpectedly that it felt supernatural; everything had coalesced, all the details that looked so disparate holding a shape that had been there the whole time. Like a constellation. The blood on the knife. The blood on the window. Jesse Clark, dead at the bottom of the trap room. Even Jim Fabbri’s research and all those damn articles Hazard had been reading.

  “You know,” Cynthia said.

  Somers set his phone to record. He told her she was under arrest. He issued the Miranda warning.

  “I understand my rights,” Cynthia said in that horrible, slurred voice.

  It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t rock solid. Her lawyer, later, would probably try to weasel out of anything she said by blaming the dope. Some of the same thoughts must have passed through Cynthia’s mind because she gave a crooked smile, turned towards Somers’s phone, and said, “I, Cynthia Sophie Outzen, am of sound mind. I would like to make a full confession.”

  But then she just sat there, staring out from those puffy slits, her eyes opaque like steam on a mirror.

  “Did you kill Jim Fabbri?”

  Her head wobbled. Then she nodded and said, “Yes.”

  “Did you kill Carl Klimich?”

  “He hanged himself. I gave him the rope. Figuratively; I believe it was actually a belt.”

  “Did you kill Jesse Clark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you attack Lena Brigaud?”

  “Yes.” Cynthia’s voice broke on the one word, and her head sagged. “Will you tell her I’m sorry, please? I didn’t want to hurt her. We need women like her. We need women who will make the world a better place by being strong, by being brave, by going out and being examples.”

  “Like you,” Hazard said.

  “No.” Her gaze shifted to the big man. “Not like me.”

  “Walk us through the whole thing,” Somers said. “From the beginning.”

  She shook her head, still focused on Hazard. “I don’t want a world where women are like me. I don’t want a world where the only way for women to get justice is to kill.”

  “Tell us—” Somers began.

  “But that didn’t keep you from killing three people.” Hazard’s pale features were expressionless, but his voice held a sneer. “Just like Fukuma. Just like the Ozark Volunteers, for that matter.”

  “I told you, Detective Somers. Didn’t I tell you? My memory of that day isn’t very good, but I think I remember telling you.”

  “You told me,” Somers said.

  “What?” Hazard asked.

  “I’m not like Fukuma. And I’m not like the Volunteers. Or the Bright Lighters. Or any of them. Do you know what I learned when I went to Washington? Do you know what they taught me?” Her whole face seemed to spasm, shifting under the white wrapping. “Only one sacrifice can make the world a better place: the sacrifice of yourself. That’s what I’ve done, Mr. Hazard. I’ve sacrificed myself.”

  “You’ll get three meals a day and have cable TV for the rest of your life,” Hazard said. “Three people are in the ground. That’s the best fucking self-sacrifice I’ve ever heard of.”

  “You think—” Cynthia began.

  “This isn’t productive,” Somers said. “Let’s start from the beginning.”

  But Hazard was pushing toward the bed, a finger stabbing at Cynthia. “Where are Mitchell Martin, Rory Engels, and Phil Camerata? Where the fuck are they?”

  Somers felt like the room had frozen—not because of the question, but because of the total shock on Cynthia’s face.

  “Who?” She worked her mouth for a moment. “Mitchell?”

  “Where are they?” Hazard asked. “I know you took them, so where are they?”

  Cynthia shook her head. “I didn’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Where are they?” Hazard growled, lunging.

  Somers was up, interposing his body, catching Hazard’s charge with his shoulder. “Jesus Christ, Ree, pull it together or go wait in the hall.”

  Hazard spun, kicked the second chair, and sent it flying. It crashed into the wall, breaking plaster. Running both hands through his long tangles, Hazard shook himself all over.

  “I’m fine.”

  Somers wasn’t sure about that, but he took his seat again.

  “I don’t know anything about them,” Cynthia said. “I don’t even know who two of them are. And Mitchell didn’t have anything to do with this.”

  “Just talk us through it.”

  Cynthia bit her lip and shook her head. “I thought I did it perfectly. How did you figure it out?”

  “Lots of little things that didn’t add up. I’d like you to tell us the whole thing, from the beginning.”

  She shook her head again. “You do it.”

  Somers glanced at Hazard; the big man was still pacing, still running his hand through his long, disheveled hair, but he met Somers’s gaze and shrugged.

  “Like almost everyone else at Wroxall, you didn’t want Jim Fabbri as the new hire. You agreed with Brigaud and others that the position should have gone to a woman, to a person of color, or preferably, someone who was both. You hated Jim, in fact.”

  “I told you that, more or less, the first night.”

  “But you also told us that you had moved on, built a friendship with Fabbri. That was why he was your mentor. That part was a lie. You wanted to find a way to bring him down. I assume you planned on entrapping him, finding a way to seduce him and then take him before the Title IX office and get him fired.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Hazard said.

  “He saw Lena and me get into a fight. He knew we were involved, even though Lena was in the process of breaking it off. Ei
ther he decided I was only interested in women, or he decided I was too crazy.” Cynthia was trying to smile again under the bandages. “I had to change my plans.”

  “Whose idea was it for Fabbri to fake his death?”

  “His. Can you believe it? There I was, agonizing over how I was going to get rid of him, hours and days of my life disappearing into this black well of hatred inside me, and he walked right up to me and practically put the knife in my hand.” She actually laughed then, the sound smokey with dope. “That was always his style: to create a spectacle that would rip open a construct and show everybody how flawed it was. He did it with the women’s march. He did it with the border patrol. He was going to do it here. Everybody wanted to go on and on about white privilege and how fortunate he was, so he was going to prove them wrong.” She stopped; her lips sealed into a thin line.

  “By hiring Jesse Clark,” Somers said, “to pretend to be an Ozark Volunteer. Jesse’s job was to stab Fabbri in front of everyone.”

  “He wanted everyone to see that a white man could be killed by white supremacists. No,” she shook her head, her eyes foggy. “He wanted everyone to feel it. Believe it. He wanted to prove that a straight, cis white man could be a victim just like anyone else.”

  “What did Fabbri and Jesse argue over? We have it on video.”

  “Who knows?” Cynthia said, flapping a hand. “Money, I would guess. Jim could be very cheap. That’s why he bought that horrible tape. You can’t imagine how hard it was to get it off him.”

  “You’re talking about the tape he used to secure a plastic bladder of fake blood,” Somers said. “That’s what he was wearing under his shirt. Jesse was supposed to stab Fabbri with a collapsible blade, just a prop from the theater department. Fabbri would open the bladder. To the horrified onlookers, he’d look like he’d just been stabbed to death. And then what?”