A Deeper Darkness

by Jamel Cato

“No,” the Policeman said.

  “No,” the Judge repeated.

  “Answer the question,” Clifton told the defendant.

  “It’s my gun. That’s why it has my prints. But I swear I didn’t have anything to do with Omar getting shot.”

  “But you were in the vicinity at the time of the shooting?”

  “That’s where I live.”

  “And you’ve had previous altercations with Omar Weatherby?”

  “A long time ago, but we squashed it. I don’t know who shot him. I was going to visit him in the hospital, but they stopped me.”

  “Why were you charged?”

  “I used to be in the streets, but I’m not anymore.”

  “What are you into now?”

  “I go to work and I come home. That’s it. I might lose my job over this case.”

  Clifton studied the defendant like a jeweler examining a diamond being sold by a new supplier. Then he whispered in Judge Bachlin’s ear.

  “Case dismissed,” the Judge declared.

  Ten minutes later, court deputies escorted in two young white women who were both so well turned out I couldn’t tell which was the attorney and which was the defendant.

  After reviewing the case file and asking only a single question, Clifton whispered to the Judge.

  “Advance this case to normal pre-trial processing,” Bachlin instructed.

  Lucinda and I were chatting when Clifton joined us in the observation room.

  He hugged us both then sat down next to the professor.

  The Special Pretrial Adjudication Unit is a pilot program of the District Attorney’s office with an almost perfect track record in predicting recidivism and trial outcomes. The program’s effectiveness was due to a secret the three of us knew and that I discovered when my uncle asked me to help Lucinda with a problem. He’d met Lucinda when she published a series of academic papers about the program’s success. Both of them were happily married to spouses not in the room, but I could sense the closeness they were working hard to disguise.

  “What can we do for you, Nephew?”

  “Why did you send that last defendant to trial?” I asked. “She looked like a soccer mom.”

  “She was lying,” Clifton said.

  “About the broken window?”

  “About everything. She was planning to take the house from her Aunt despite the Will. The window was part of the plan.”

  I studied my uncle the way he had studied those defendants.

  “I need help from both of you,” I said.

  “What sort of help?” Lucinda asked.

  “The kind that will require the two of you to work together and might come right up to the edge of the Police Department’s and Temple’s ethics policies.”

  “How close to the edge?” Clifton asked.

  “Close enough to kiss,” I said.

  “But not across it?” Lucinda asked.

  I answered with the same kind of smile Garrison Peakes had given me.

  “Will it be boring?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Then I’m in,” she said.

  “Really?” I asked. “But you haven’t heard the details.”

  “I have tenure,” she said. “I’d have to plagiarize a comic book on camera to lose my job. And even then, I’d get referred to a faculty disciplinary committee who’d turn it into a debate about free speech. I love leading the Life of the Mind, but Academia can be mind-numbingly boring. The most fun I’ve ever had at work was working with the two of you.”

  I turned to my uncle.

  “I respect the law,” he said sternly.

  “I know, Uncle Clif.”

  “I also don’t turn my back on my family. I promised your father I would look out for you. Tell us what you’d like us to do.”

  “I need Lucinda to distribute a fake political poll to the media and I need you to tell me which person I trust is lying to me.”

  When they didn’t immediately march out of the room, I filled them in on the pertinent details of my plan.

  CHAPTER 8

  “I thought you’d lost my number,” Elizabeth Minton said on the other end of the line.

  “What would make you think that?” I asked.

  “The fact that it’s been two years.”

  Elizabeth Minton was the newly appointed CEO of Facebook. She was one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. We’d met when I was working a case involving The Wru, a species from another dimension who had tried to annex Earth and Minton’s daughter. I’d done Elizabeth the personal favor of passing an important message to her father’s ghost. Up until then, I’d never asked for anything in return.

  “I need a favor.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I need the timeline of a particular user to be inundated with the results of a certain political poll from Temple University.”

  “Who is the user?”

  “Ashley Gilbride.”

  Elizabeth was silent for a few moments before asking, “Are we discussing the Ashley Gilbride of the Blakemore presidential campaign?”

  “That’s the one. Do you know her?”

  “All the campaigns beat my door down for donations and to complain that our algorithms are unfairly favoring their opponents. She’s an impressive young woman.”

  “Is that a no?”

  “What kind of poll is it?”

  “One that will say Serenity cannot defeat the President in a head-to-head race because the majority of Americans believe she’s hiding something about her past.”

  “If you know the results ahead of time, then it’s not a poll. It’s propaganda. I wouldn’t have pegged you for the political type or a supporter of the President’s party.”

  “You’re right on all three counts. I just need to get Miss Gilbride’s attention.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to just call? I can quietly arrange it if you’d like.”

  “Thanks, but the poll has more than one purpose. It’s important that she reaches out to me instead of the other way around.”

  “Just so we’re clear, neither I nor this company will be a part of anything that manipulates voters or the electoral process.”

  “I would never ask you to do either. I just want Ashley to see a poll.”

  She gave me an email address and instructed me to send the poll to it.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “May I give you two pieces of advice, Dr. Tiptree?”

  “Of course.”

  “First, targeting a single user will be ineffective. She will simply reach out to other users for confirmation. It will need to be consistently prevalent within six degrees of social separation in order to be believable. And if you really want to get her attention, it should be shown just as much to influencers with at least ten thousand followers.”

  “If I was there, I would bow at your feet.”

  “My second bit of advice is to remember that fear will not prevent change.”

  “Is that advice for me or the people you think I’m acting on behalf of?”

  “It’s my favorite Serenity Blakemore quote.”

  After I hung up, Eve floated through the wall of my office. “Are you wearing loose pants?”

  “Why?”

  “Your one o’clock is here and I don’t want you to inadvertently give away your negotiating position.”

  I got up and walked over to the computer workstation with a live video feed to the store’s security cameras. My calendar said that I had a 1 PM meeting with an attorney from Speaker Schmidt’s office named Johnathan Reisman. But that’s not who showed up.

  I was wearing cologne and a better shirt when I stepped into the showroom of my store to greet Jasmine Perry.

  She was about five foot seven with caramel skin, long natural hair and a face that was beautiful enough to make desert gods do a rain dance.

  I glanced at the expensive pair of sunglasses she was admiring. “Those frames are made of a special material that w
on’t break regardless of how hard you twist its body.”

  She looked up at me. “How many bodies did you twist to learn that?”

  “More than I can count with two hands, but not so many that you would have to think twice about bringing me home for Christmas.”

  She smiled.

  When we got to my office, I sat in the guest chair directly across from her instead of behind my desk.

  “Thank you for seeing me,” she said.

  “Thank you for being a sight to see.”

  “What if I find that remark sexist?”

  “Do you?”

  She crossed her legs and examined her finely manicured nails. “I debated if I should come in person or just send Johnathan. Then, on the way here, I debated which Jasmine I would show you.”

  “How many do you have?”

  “As many as I need to achieve my goals.”

  “That sounds like a lot.”

  “I only have a few goals.”

  “What are your goals?”

  “The only one you need to be concerned with is my goal of ensuring Serenity Blakemore doesn’t ruin Speaker Schmidt’s chances of becoming America’s first female President.”

  “That’s up to the voters.”

  “Voters are like children who do what they’re told as long as you tell them in the correct way.”

  I noticed she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but a band of skin on her ring finger was lighter than the skin around it.

  “You know that because you have kids?”

  “My lifestyle is not conducive to children.”

  “Is it conducive to a husband?”

  “I’m separated. And you’re prying.”

  “So, which Jasmine am I talking to?”

  She leaned back. “My very first job in politics was a college internship for a state senator representing my part of Florida. There were two other interns in the office that summer. One was a young man from Harvard who might be the smartest person I ever met and wrote incredible position papers on any policy issue. The other was a guy with local roots who spoke three languages and was an amazing community organizer. Both of them made tremendous and valuable contributions, but I was the only one of the three to be offered a permanent position after graduation. When I asked the Chief of Staff why in the world he would pick me over either of them, he said it was because I looked hotter than they did and I was the only one who realized that the Chief of Staff was the most important person in the office, not the elected official. He predicted that the other two would end up working for me one day.”

  “Did they?”

  “One of the other interns was named Johnathan Reisman. He went to Yale Law School after Harvard. He’s the Speaker’s Chief Legislative Assistant, reporting to me.”

  “Does the spook who was following me yesterday report to you too?”

  “Is that what Art told you?”

  “He said you had the highest BBR Index in DC.”

  She chuckled. “Now that’s something I find sexist. What if we measured male political operatives by penis size?”

  “Then I’d be the Chief of Staff.”

  She laughed hard. “I’m glad I decided to come here in person.”

  I leaned forward in my chair. “Can I be honest with you?”

  “Please.”

  “I think somewhere behind your polished exterior you’ve thought about how unstoppable Serenity Blakemore would be with you at her side instead of an idealistic amateur like Ashley Gilbride. You came here in person because you knew you would be one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen and that would surely help persuade me to subtly suggest a partnership like that to Serenity if it turns out she’s not some kind of supernatural freak that would disqualify her from the election. You were going to assure me that you could protect me from Garrison Peakes if I could somehow make that happen. You’re loyal to Carol Schmidt and your party, but you know she doesn’t have the intangible quality needed to win a national election. And you didn’t come this far and endure all those power lunches with lustful old white men just to get stuck on a House Committee.”

  “It’s rare to meet a man who lives up to his reputation.”

  “It’s even rarer to meet a woman who looks better in person than she does online.”

  “Can you really see ghosts?”

  “You wouldn’t be here if I couldn’t.”

  “Is there one here now?”

  “No,” I lied.

  “May I be honest with you?”

  “It’s only fair.”

  “I think there is a ghost here now and it’s the entity you call Eve, even though that’s not her real name. I know that’s not her real name because the DSO has a highly classified file on her that not only includes the details of her working relationship with you but a whole dossier on who she was when she was alive. I’ve never met a ghost, but I bet that psychologically, they’re like people who were adopted: No matter how content you are with the life you have, you want to know who you are and where you came from. I can give her those answers. You know what else I think?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I think you already know whether Serenity Blakemore is supernatural or not. You’ve decided not to share that information with anyone until you’ve had the chance to meet and judge her for yourself. You have a plan to do that. It’s the kind of plan that recognizes that no woman is an island and the people around her may be more important than the woman herself. You have what you believe are foolproof contingencies to deal with Garrison Peakes and me if what you find is a lesser evil than the ones we pose. What I came in person to tell you is that there is no contingency that will protect you if you betray me and no evil that can harm you while you’re by my side.”

  Did you ever have one of those dreams where you’re walking around in public with no clothes on? That’s how I felt listening to her break me down like a discount camping tent. Except instead of walking on the ground, I was straddling a razor wire tightrope on a windy day.

  “Why should I trust you?” I asked.

  “You can’t trust anyone, but you should line up with me because I know how to ride the wind.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Have you heard the story of Farmer Joe and The Wind?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “There were two farmers, Farmer Joe and Farmer Bob. They owned adjacent farms in a flat part of the country where the wind can be devastating. Farmer Bob dealt with this by reinforcing his grain silo with concrete, planting his seeds deeper in the ground and studiously studying the Almanac to be prepared for a windstorm. He looked down on Farmer Joe, whom he viewed as lazy because he did none of those things. Every year, the wind would blow. Some years, the wind would be strong enough to destroy Farmer Bob’s silo and crops, leaving him in destitution. But Farmer Joe always prospered because every year he would come outside after the wind and water the ground. If the wind had blown in grain seeds, he would sell grain. If it blew in acorns, he would sell Christmas Trees. If it blew in nothing at all, he would make a high interest loan to Farmer Bob to rebuild his silo. What Farmer Joe and I know is that you can’t stop the wind from blowing, and you can’t control which way it blows, but you can ride it to your advantage.”

  She had strategically emphasized the word ride. “Some people might say that instead of chasing the wind, you should be thankful for the position you have.”

  She leaned in close enough for me to smell her perfume. “May I call you Preston?”

  “My friends call me Tree.”

  “Tree, if there is one thing you should remember about me, it’s that anyone who has me in any position is the lucky one, not the other way around.”

  Eve was right to be worried about my pants. “Will you teach me how to ride?”

  She retrieved a sealed envelope from her purse and handed it to me. Then she rose to leave.

  “How can I get in touch with you?”

  She beamed her contact information from her
smartphone to mine.

  “Should I only use this during business hours?” I asked suggestively.

  “Call me whenever you can tell me something that will make me happy.”

  After Jasmine left my office, I expected Eve, who had been present for the entire conversation, to tell me that my flirting was going to get me in trouble or warm me that I had jumped into an ocean infested with sharks without knowing if I could swim. Instead she avoided eye contact and said nothing. Her atypical silence spoke volumes about who had gotten the better of my encounter with Jasmine Perry.

  CHAPTER 9

  Phoenix House was a substance abuse recovery center in Kensington, a part of Philadelphia that had been hit hard by the nation’s opioid addiction crisis.

  I told the receptionist that my name was Lionel Atkins and I was an investigator for HealthUnited Insurance conducting an investigation into the death of Holly Nash. Holly was a ghost and former addict I’d met outside the building an hour earlier. She’d told me that she was planning to haunt the building because her untimely death had been caused by the negligence of the Phoenix House’s staff. Holly’s problem was that she was such a new ghost she hadn’t yet figured out how to pass through walls and enter the facility.

  The receptionist evaluated me with a discerning eye before inviting me to have a seat.

  A few minutes later a tall white woman in her forties appeared in the lobby. She had sallow skin and hair that had been recently dyed a color that was supposed to be walnut but came out a little too orange. I wondered if people made torch jokes behind her back. She guided me to a small and disheveled office that was overflowing with papers, file cabinets and poorly framed inspirational posters.

  She told me her name was Aida DiBento just before asking for one of my business cards. I handed her one of the half dozen fake cards I carried with me. She excused herself and left the room.

  When she returned in five minutes, she flopped down in her office chair and asked, “Who are you?”

  “As I’ve already explained, I’m Lionel Atkins from HealthUnited Insurance. I’m conducting an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Miss Nash’s death.”

  “I worked at HealthUnited for thirteen years. I just called some people I know over there and had them check into you. There’s no Lionel Atkins employed there.”