Vacant

by Alex Hughes

  “The judge had been talking to the police about the case and the jury sequestration steadily until last week, when we get half the calls logged. There was an incoming call about then, and according to the staff attorney she reacted badly. As near as we can tell, it was another death threat of higher quality. She doubled the bodyguards she already had on her son and changed her routine.”

  “Which should have been enough,” I said.

  “Maybe. But the attack happened anyway. And she hasn’t been steady since then.”

  “Do you think she’s afraid for her life?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what I think. Jarrod’s having us track down additional case details, so I’m working on that.”

  “Okay,” I said. I was missing something; I knew I was missing something. “Where was Quentin in all of this? The boy’s father?”

  “We don’t know,” Mendez said. “A lot of what I’m doing is trying to track his movements.”

  “He seems genuinely loving of Tommy,” I said.

  “Doesn’t mean he’s not threatening his ex-wife,” Mendez said. “Or behind some of these other things. A lot of times perpetrators like to hang out and watch the FBI work. I don’t think it’s likely, but it is one of the things we’re looking at.”

  “So the letters are the key. They’re why you guys were called, right? Walk me through the letters again.”

  She pulled them out. “As you can see, the ones we’re concerned about all had that paper weld to them. Before you ask, no, that was a dead end. A library model and we couldn’t get respectable fingerprints.”

  I thought about that. “How long do you think this case will take?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. This has been a pretty strange case. We don’t normally work protection duty, and most all the time we get called in on kids’ cases they’ve already been taken. I’m not complaining. It’s just impossible to say what’s normal. You might ask the sheriff’s department, since they handle a lot of security locally.”

  “Did you ever get back a physical workup on the letters?” I asked.

  She pulled another folder over. “Yes . . . yes. Assorted pollens consistent with the Southeast. The older ones seem to be from somewhere north of here, away from the ocean, some of them with Atlanta-consistent pollution markers, but the ones we’re worried about change—the last one has a marsh-flower pollen on it.”

  “So whoever it was was here?” I asked.

  “That’s what it looks like. Assuming we can trust the pollens didn’t cross-contaminate. The letters were stored together.”

  “Do you think we have a viable threat against the judge?” I asked. “Against her son?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “The local air force base had a storeroom with more than a pallet’s worth of equipment missing since the last inventory. There are weapons out there, more than just the ones used in the attack. Enough weapons to be a viable threat even against all of us.”

  A chill went down my spine. “When was the last inventory?”

  “Four months ago.”

  “So someone could have stolen the military gear we saw?”

  “Yes. In fact, I think it’s likely that it never left the city. ATF is tracing its sale through that gun shop we were investigating.”

  “You think they’re going to be used against us. Whatever’s left from what was stolen.”

  “Yes. I see no reason to think otherwise.”

  I processed that for a long moment. Just when I’d thought this situation couldn’t get any worse . . .

  “This case is turning into a snarl for you,” I said finally.

  She shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time the FBI coordinated between a handful of departments. Whatever it takes to get the job done, or at least that’s what Jarrod says. The ATF should find the weapons before they’re used.”

  “Should?”

  “Hopefully,” she said. “But keep your eyes open.”

  * * *

  After a night of very little restless sleep and a lot of worry, I woke up when the first ray of sunshine puddled down the wooden floor to land in my eyes. My bones hurt, again, from sleeping on a cot in the middle of a hallway. But either they didn’t hurt as bad or I was more resigned to the pain; I got up and stretched, my knees protesting, before finding a stale pastry of some kind in the kitchen. I even found—and successfully made—a decent pot of simcoffee, so the day was already working out somewhat well. That is, if you ignored the danger hanging over my head and the general lack of sleep.

  People were stirring, and Sridarin was outside keeping an eye on the street. Tommy was sleeping deeply two rooms away. But no one was in the kitchen, and there was a perfectly good phone there. It was also about seven, more or less when Cherabino usually started her day. Maybe I could check in on her, have one less thing to worry about for the next few hours.

  I dialed her number. It rang twice, and she picked up.

  “Mmrph?” she answered. It was kinda cute.

  “How’s the hearing going?” I asked, probably too quickly. “You okay?”

  “No,” she said, and sighed. I could hear the rustling of fabric, probably her sitting up. I could picture her rubbing her eyes.

  “Did I wake you?” I asked.

  She cleared her throat. “Well, I probably had to be up in fifteen minutes anyway. How’s the case going in Savannah?”

  “I’m making progress,” I said. “It’s a nontrivial threat level. The new boss is strict, but that’s nothing new. I get the feeling they’re not letting me in on all the case details, but I am the Minding consultant, not the detective consultant. But the threat’s bothering me, worse the longer nothing happens.”

  “That’s normal for any kind of protective duty,” Cherabino said.

  After a moment of silence, I offered, “Still, it’s strange.” I thought about mentioning that I’d seen Sibley again, but I didn’t know what I would say.

  She made an agreement sound, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it.

  “Why aren’t you okay?” I asked.

  She blew out a breath. “So the lawyer called character witnesses for me. Like, half the department.”

  I nodded. “She said she was going to.”

  “Branen stood up for me. Boyles stood up for me. One of my ex-partners drove in from his retirement cottage on the beach just to speak up for me.”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “It was. It sounded good. And then . . . well, I told you they’re putting it in the papers, right? Some kind of watershed police brutality charge.”

  “I thought your lawyer was getting that thrown out!” I half yelled, then lowered my voice and looked around the half-empty kitchen with chagrin. “That doesn’t make any sense. You were clearly set up. The date was just a coincidence. They have to know that. And the union’s on your side, isn’t it?”

  She made a frustrated noise. “Internal Affairs doesn’t think so, and they’re letting reporters in the room. They never do that. The union’s on my side, sure, for now, but even it doesn’t want to do too much to support ‘police brutality.’ Honestly I’m disgusted with the whole thing. This is everything I ever hated about politics, and if Chou wasn’t there fighting for me, I’d be in a very bad place. He says at this point it’s not even about me. It can’t be, and he’s saying . . . well, he was saying we’d beat it by getting people to speak for me. The politics are just politics, he said, and they’ll blow over. But I’m not sure I believe that.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “I mean, they don’t really have anything but the witness testimonies, right? And those have to be overcome by the folks speaking for you.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, no. They’ve brought in some old things and some evidence. They pulled my file and are reading it to the whole room. They got that rookie I hit when Stephens picked the fight wit
h me to say I started it. And they . . . they’re bringing up what happened after Peter was killed. They say I was too harsh on the guys who killed him. Too harsh!” Her voice broke. “Bastards are still breathing and they say I’m too harsh. They have to be building a case for some kind of political reason.”

  “What else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “You said evidence,” I said, my stomach knotting more and more as we went. “You don’t throw around words like that without a reason. What’s the evidence?”

  A long pause, with her breathing not exactly steady. “They found my fingerprints on the pole. I think I told you that. The angle . . . the angle, it’s what they say you’d need to beat the guy to death.”

  Holy crap. I closed my eyes. I was there. It couldn’t be true. It simply couldn’t. Guilt and shame and hurt for her mixed up in my guts. “Could it be one left over from the fight?” I asked.

  I could almost see her shaking her head. “No.”

  I took a breath. “It’s not like you can’t fake fingerprints. I’ll drive up, I’ll tell them what happened, and we’ll go from there. Um, I may need to bring a ten-year-old with me. Do you think we can find him a spot at the department? Maybe get Andrew to watch him?” It would break every rule they had here, but she needed me. I couldn’t not go.

  “What are you doing with a ten-year-old?” she asked.

  “Minding, I told you.”

  “You can’t testify,” Cherabino said.

  “I have a record, but so what? I saw what happened, and that has to matter to someone.”

  “The lawyer said you can’t testify. We’re dating and you’ve already . . . it’s not going to look good for me to be dating a felon. And a telepath. Okay? It’s on the record, and they’ll probably bring it up, but then the lawyer will bring up your records and your saving my life. I asked. Twice.”

  “What do you mean it’s not going to look good with you dating a felon?” She’d never used that word before. Never. It hurt.

  “It’s the lawyer’s concern, I’m sorry. I . . .” Her voice broke. “I need you to just be okay, okay? I’m doing the absolute best that I can right now. I need you to understand. I have to get through this, and the lawyer says he has a plan. I hope—it has to work. It has to.”

  “What was the third thing?” I asked, emotions tight like a guitar string with too much tension. One move would break it.

  “Fiske is scheduled to testify today against me.”

  I stared straight ahead. “What?”

  “Yeah. Garrett Fiske. The man who plays poker with the devil and who we know—but can’t prove—is involved in half the nasty stuff in the city? Yeah, that guy. Apparently he and the mayor are friends and the mayor thinks he should tell everyone how violated he felt when you and I told him to back the hell off. Apparently it’s fine to threaten my nephew and Lord knows what else, but the minute we—”

  “Fiske?” I interrupted, still unable to believe it.

  “Yeah.”

  “Garrett Fiske? How in hell is he testifying in a police building?” I asked, everything else disappearing in the face of that one central stupidity.

  “And you want to know the worst part?”

  “What?”

  “The fingerprint is half-smudged, like I tried to wipe it off the thing after I was done. It’s a bang-up job. The lab’s sure the timeline fits exactly—apparently the oil and sweat were the right age. They wouldn’t go into details even when I bribed them. It looks pretty damning.” She huffed again.

  “That’s . . . that’s. . . .” I didn’t know what to say. How could they have found a fingerprint if she didn’t leave one? I hadn’t thought she’d touched the pole at all.

  “Adam?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You were there, right? I didn’t do more than rough him up a little, right? You’re sure I didn’t kill him?”

  I closed my eyes. If she was doubting herself, it really was bad. “Yeah, I was there. He was alive when we left him. Alive with a few bruises and a headache. He was even awake.”

  I paused then. Had I hurt the guy? Was this my fault? “It wasn’t an aneurism or a heart attack or anything like that, was it?”

  “You were there,” she said. “Half his face was caved in. Whoever killed him did it with their fists and that damn pole.”

  “Oh,” I said. I remembered that now. It all felt so far away. It had been a long few days, a few days that had felt in some ways like months had gone by. I felt like reality was shifting underneath me as surely as it had shifted in Tommy’s mind after the marble. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “You certainly didn’t kill the guy.” And I believed it. I did. But the whole thing made me very tired, and far more worried than I had been.

  “I’m going to fight. I have to fight,” she said, but she sounded tired too.

  “Of course you will. You sure you don’t want me there?” I said.

  “You’ve got work, and you need the money. Plus, I’ve got to keep it together and I’m not sure you being here will help with that. If you can’t speak for me, I’m not sure anything else is going to help.” She paused as I tried to figure out whether she was lying. “Where are you anyway?”

  “Savannah,” I said. I thought I’d told her that, but who knew? I wasn’t happy right now. I was worried for her and offended, still, a little. And I missed her, her absence like a sore tooth.

  “I need to get ready for work now,” she said, and added a good-bye in a tone of voice she knew I wouldn’t argue with.

  “Bye,” I said to the empty dial tone. She was running away again, and this far away, there was nothing I could do about it.

  * * *

  I sat at the kitchen table, another cup of simcoffee and a stale piece of bread with butter in hand. I stared at the scarred wood tabletop while the coffee went cold and the bread got even staler. I tried to not feel offended, and to make connections. It was beyond belief that Fiske would be involved here in Savannah and be testifying against Cherabino and it all be unconnected. But for the life of me I couldn’t see a common thread. It still felt like it was all falling apart, or would. I could see the vision coming now, and I didn’t know how to stop it. The same for Cherabino, whose job I was now afraid was really, truly in jeopardy.

  The phone had rung earlier, and they’d picked it up in the main room. Tommy was stirring in the other room, doubtlessly woken up by that phone, and me trying to get the energy to go check on him. The surroundings seemed clear in Mindspace; I’d checked while I drank the half a cup of simcoffee that I had. That didn’t mean I wasn’t still jumping at shadows, trying to get ahead of Sibley. It was only Friday. Or just Friday. We’d have the weekend after this, not have to go into the courthouse, maybe. Would that make things worse or better? I wished I knew.

  Jarrod came into the kitchen then, saw the coffeepot, and grabbed a cup. He seemed . . . agitated. He also carried a crisp new file folder with some things in it.

  “What is it?” I asked, pulled out of my own obsession only out of force of habit. In the other room, Tommy was getting more active and I’d have to deal with him soon.

  Jarrod looked at me while stirring the coffee. “Maybe I can help,” I said. I needed to do something useful right now. A phone call to Swartz had only let me leave a message with his wife, not talk to him. Something useful and distracting would be great right now, pull me away from thinking about cigarettes or Satin or running away. “What’s going on?”

  “Maybe you can,” Jarrod said. He came to the table, bringing the coffee and the file folder. “At least ask some questions from a new angle. So you know the team’s been investigating the attack?” he said.

  I nodded. “Something about working with your federal contacts?”

  “Yes. The staff attorney called us because of the death threats via US Mail. That’s our jurisdi
ction. Guarding witnesses technically is not, but since there’s a telepathy angle here and we work with nonaffiliated telepaths, we’ve been given authorization to extend our responsibility. In any case, we’ve been asking questions through our existing contacts and comparing lists.”

  “Lists?” I asked.

  “People with access to military resources, either in surplus or off the air force base in town. People matching the loose description of the attackers you gave us. And, most recently, the list of people who’ve called the gun store in the last six months. If we get a hit on DNA from the scene there, even better.”

  “I’m pretty sure Sibley killed the gun store owner,” I said.

  He nodded. “You told me that.”

  I looked at him more closely then, feeling the edge of his exhaustion under the agitation. There were circles under his eyes, deep ones. Likely he hadn’t slept much more than I had. It made me like him a little better.

  “What’s the issue now?” I asked. “Other than the fact that there’s a hit man out there who easily wants us all dead and seems to be threatening the judge directly?” I still hadn’t told him about Sibley’s mind-control machine, and after my conversation with Kara last night I thought that unless he’d listened in on that conversation, I probably shouldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to be the start of a Guild-normals war. But I also didn’t want the team to get blindsided.

  Jarrod laughed, a dark sound. “Other than serious danger and a ten-year-old? And the fact that the judge can’t tell us anything useful? That should be enough. Even if we still can’t connect Pappadakis or anyone in his company or staff to the killings yet. We’ve got locals tailing half a dozen people, trying to get ahead of the issue.”

  “But it’s not enough,” I said, my stomach sinking. “That’s what you’re saying. It’s not enough.”

  “No. There’re six names on our final list, suspects I wanted to track down today and have a talk with. I had the local police put out an all-points on them. Standard procedure so that somebody with more manpower brings them in if we can manage it. I got some notes on their usual habits from a detective who’s dealt with them before at about two last night.” He stopped, and his mind felt . . . shaky then.