by Jen Haeger
Okay, stopping Ray once she’s at a location won’t help, but maybe if we got the person away from the location? Right, so then we’d just have to ask a bunch of people to stay at a hotel indefinitely or, better yet, have them move out and not allow anyone to move back in. I take a long draw of beer then grab another handful of pretzels. I feel the warm ooze as the tequila hits my bloodstream via my empty stomach, and decide I’ll just confuse myself and get frustrated trying to suss out a plan tonight. But it doesn’t mean I’m stopping. Being kicked off the case and having no support from Ben is going to make things a whole hell of a lot harder, but screw it. Giving up isn’t an option and never has been, and I’ve still got about two weeks on Ben and my original deal. I’ll have to figure out other ways, that’s all. And lie to Ben. Shit.
***
I’m two baskets of pretzels and three beers in when Crone shows up. Unlike me, he hasn’t been home to clean up and change and looks a lot like he slept in his clothes instead of spent the day in them. Spotting me, he frowns and marches up. “Couldn’t have picked a nicer place, huh?”
“We have a history, Lucky’s and I.” I shift off the bar stool, only wobble slightly, and appropriate my beer and third pretzel basket from the bar. “Order a drink and meet me at the table in the corner.”
Having learned to take Crone’s grunt as assent, I leave him and wend my way to the shadowy corner table in the back of the bar. I’m grateful but not surprised it’s empty since most of tonight’s action is up at the bar and there isn’t any wait staff. I slide into the booth, pushing away memories of Ben and me at this table. Crone isn’t far behind. As he sits, I point to the drink in his hand.
“I asked you to join me for a beer. That’s not a beer.”
“My favorite beer is Scotch.”
“Fair enough.” I sip at my fourth beer, but I’m full and on the edge of tipping over the fine line between drunkenness and puking.
Crone, on the other hand, takes a healthy gulp of his scotch. “Now talk.”
“I fucked up.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant Obvious. I’d already figured that one out, being a detective and all.”
I dip a finger in my beer and swirl it around the rim of my glass. “I had a hunch and I was too much of a fucking coward to come out with it, so I skulked around on my own and I got caught.”
“Got caught doing what exactly?”
I look him in the eye. “Researching WHISPs.”
“Hmm.” More of Crone’s scotch finds its way into his stomach. “That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“I couldn’t think of anything which would piss the chief off so much he’d let Coppola kick you out, but anything that might drag the NYPD, and the FBI, for that matter, into another volley of ugly anti-WHISP publicity would do it.”
Crone continues to surprise me with his insight. “Guess so.”
“So, who’d you talk to that got everyone’s panties in a bunch?”
“CAW.”
Nearly spitting out a mouthful of scotch, Crone sputters, “Holy shit, Harbinger. That was ballsy.”
“It was stupid.”
“Then why do it?”
I’m feeling saucy, so I push the pretzel basket toward him. “You’re a detective, why do you think I did it?”
Scrutinizing me, he chooses a pretzel and pops it into his mouth. “Well, you’re a driven woman who can’t let go, and a detective bent on justice. You wouldn’t risk getting thrown off the case unless you had a damn good reason, and since we were already onto the theory the killer had a WHISP, it’s something else.”
I flick the side of my glass. “Bring it on home.”
“You think the WHISP did it.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kitti60: “Jordan totally deserved that rose!!!!”
Luvly1: “I knw, right?”
HeyYou88: “The only rsn Katia didn’t chse him was becse he had a WHISP.”
The Bachelorette Forum, Thread: I “heart” Jordan
“Bingo.”
Crone raises a single eyebrow in response.
“I’m not delusional. I don’t think WHISPs fly around and murder people of their own volition. I think Chester is somehow using Ray to kill people.”
He lets out a deep, wheezy breath and finishes off his scotch. “Well, I can see why you didn’t want to bring this up to me and Coppola.”
“Do you believe it’s possible for a WHISP to kill someone?”
“You got some proof you’re not telling me about?”
I swallow a mouthful of beer turned warm and bitter. “Nope.”
“You got some way of getting proof?”
“Not really. Not yet.”
“Fuck, Harbinger, you’re not giving me a choice here. I can’t believe it.”
“You mean, you can’t believe me.”
“Listen, I know you’re a good cop, and I know you’ve been turning yourself inside out trying to figure this case out, but maybe you need this step back to get some perspective.”
“Think about it, Crone, why would we just assume all WHISPs are identical, that they would all act exactly the same? It doesn’t make any sense the things wouldn’t grow and change over time, become more attuned to their human’s thoughts. I’m not even talking about telekinesis or anything, I’m talking about electrical impulses having an effect on a mass of particles. That’s at least a little fucking scientific, isn’t it?”
He outlines his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. “A little. But if Chester could kill people with her WHISP, then why hasn’t she murdered the guards over at Rikers and made a break for it?”
“The woman at CAW said something about the particles only being able to affect people who also have WHISPs.”
“And there’s some kind of scientific explanation for that?”
“I’m sure there is, but I’m not a fucking particle physicist.”
“Right, okay, point taken. But…aw crap, this is just too fucking weird. Just…let’s just wait until we get this round of interviews with the suspects that vice rounded up for us done, okay? If those are a dead end then, fuck, I don’t know, we’ll figure something out.”
I want to tell him not to do me any favors, but without Crone’s help, I’ll be completely out of the loop. “Fine. When are you starting those interviews?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Keep me in the loop.”
“Yeah, okay.”
***
A glare is cutting into my retinas through my closed eyelids as the world slowly comes back and my gut clenches and heaves, nausea spreading down from the back of my skull into my throat and stomach. Swallowing down bile with a dry and sour tongue, I roll onto my back and raise an arm to protect my eyes from the light. As far as I remember, I finished off the fourth beer and maybe two others before taking a cab home, and the current state of my head and stomach certainly seem to confirm it. I’m contemplating sitting up when I hear the bedroom door open and Ben’s furtive movements. I could feign sleep, but thirst combined with a strong desire not to move triumphs over residual petty anger.
“I’m awake.”
“Oh, okay, how are you feeling?”
“Abysmal. What time is it?”
“Almost one.”
Slowly I tilt my arm so I can peer at him under it. “Crap.”
He comes over and sits on the edge of the bed. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not like you have any place to be.”
“No, I guess I don’t.”
“Do you wanna talk about it?”
I’m not sure if he means my drunken outing, our fight, my removal from the case, or my WHISP neurosis, so I shake my head. The world wubba-wubba’s and I wince. “But I could use a nice big glass of water.”
“I’ll do you one better. I went out this morning and got some Gatorade.”
“Perfect.”
Ben exits and I slowly and painfully prop myself up into a non-choking position before he returns with a yellow Gatorade with a
bendy straw sticking out of it. Despite my hangover and everything happening, I can’t suppress a smile. Remembering a bendy straw is true love. He hands me the bottle and returns to sitting on the edge of the bed. I take a tentative sip and let the liquid spread out across my tongue before swallowing. It’s sweet and salty and good, and I think I may avoid vomiting after all.
“What are you thinking in the food department?”
“Negatory.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone for a bit?”
Despite still being mad at him, I can’t shun him when he’s taking such good care of me and my hangover. Also, he might need to hold my hair back. “No.”
Ben’s eyes roam around the bedroom as if he’s searching for something to say. “I, ah, talked to Lincoln earlier today.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” his voice is tight. “I thought you’d want to talk to him yourself about…things. Maybe now…maybe you can have lunch with him this week.”
“Maybe…” I haven’t let myself really think about Lincoln lately, and the guilt is now leaching into me.
“He said things are going really well in the lab right now. He’s excited about a project he’ll be starting with the particle accelerator.”
“That’s great.”
The elephant in the room seems to be crushing both of us, but I don’t know what to say to Ben right now, and I can’t think of anything but lies. “Did anyone call for me?”
His expression darkens. “No. Are you expecting a call?”
I shrug. “Crone promised to keep me in the loop.”
“He did?”
“Call it a professional courtesy.”
“Ah.”
I’m nearly finished with the Gatorade and feeling decidedly more human. “Maybe I could go for brunch.”
Watching as relief washes over him, for a moment the horrible awkwardness between us is lifted. Ben leans forward and kisses me on the nose.
“You got it.”
I let a smile spread across my lips, but as soon as he leaves, the smile fades. The degree to which my life is currently screwed up is astonishing.
Chapter Thirty
WHISPLite is a small, lightweight device that allows you to choose from seven different colors and eight different light pattern settings to make your WHISP stand out in the crowd.
WHISPLite Kickstarter campaign
Ben’s out getting groceries, and I’m in the office with ginger tea to calm my still delicate stomach, sorting out my facts. I’m doing it for Ben and Crone, but more for myself. I need to find a real way to move forward without waiting for another body to drop, but sometimes to move forward, we need to go back. I pull out my personal files on Rachel Chester’s first victim, Michael Rose. Technically, we never found trace evidence to directly link her to his death, but the MO was so exact I never had a doubt he was her first.
As I’m flipping through the pages, reliving the crime scene in my mind, I feel like I’m caught in a spider web of Chester’s creation. Over a year has passed and I am right back at the beginning, staring down at Michael Rose’s remains and wishing I’d retired a year sooner. The first thing I’d taken note of then was the brutality of the murder. According to friends, family, and coworkers, Michael was an amiable divorcee who’d only recently developed a WHISP. No one could think of any enemies and the ex-wife, living in California with her new husband, had seemed shocked and upset when interviewed.
Yet the dismemberment of the body spoke to a degree of hate I’d rarely, if ever, witnessed as a homicide detective. I remember hoping we’d find shady dealings somewhere in his financials, or a drug problem—anything—to explain his death as something other than a random killing, because a random killing hinted of a serial killer. Then one lead after another withered and died until the only possibility was a random killing. Less than a month later, Chester struck again.
Her next victim was a married law clerk, Jeffrey Wales, but at the time of his murder, his wife was out of town visiting relatives. Even though it takes three victims to consider a murderer a serial killer, I already knew it was what we had. It didn’t even phase me when we turned up evidence Jeffrey had a serious gambling problem, because I knew the lead would amount to nothing, and it did. The same MO to the letter, but this time we got lucky and found an out-of-place hair at the crime scene. Sadly, with no suspect yet, there was nothing to compare the hair to. It was only much later that we scored with a statistically significant correspondence of Chester’s DNA to DNA recovered from the hair, but still, that evidence had ultimately amounted to squat due to a rooky technician mislabeling the chain of evidence sheet.
But really, according to my fucked up theory, there shouldn’t be any evidence of Chester at the crime scenes. If she could just send out Ray to kill people and leave no evidence behind, why wouldn’t she do that? The answer wasn’t too hard to fathom: she wanted to be there. She wanted to see Ray murder those people. Or maybe her tether was shorter a year ago and she had to be there. In any case, I didn’t think for one minute she was innocent in all this. She must have been controlling Ray, using her as a weapon. But was she controlling her now? Oh, come on Sylvia, let’s not even go there. Crone already thinks you’re a loony bird.
Oh God, Crone. Why the fuck did I go blabbing my theory to him last night? Was I really that desperate after getting thrown off the case? He’s probably sitting his big blubbery ass on his desk right now with a bear claw in one hand, holding court and confirming everyone’s suspicions I’m off my rocker when it comes to WHISPs. I can almost hear him laughing at me despite his trappings of humanity last night. Or maybe I’d just been too drunk to notice he was only pretending to give a shit, nodding with insincerity when I told him I’d wanted to be a cop years before my parents were murdered.
My stomach roils at the memory and I take another sip of tea. Nothing I can do about it now. The WHISP’s out of the bag. I set aside the Wales file and move on to Jacob Beene’s. I try to picture Chester frequenting the coffee shop, taking note of the only employee there with a WHISP. I wonder what he said to her to set her off. Did he try to befriend her? Maybe make some joke about getting Ray a chai latte? Or maybe he’d never even spoken to her. Chester never once mentioned a motive. It’s possible the whole thing didn’t have anything to do with Beene or Infante or Wilcox or any of them specifically. They might have just looked like men who’d once wronged her.
My head is aching in spite of the Tylenol I popped earlier. I’m not even sure what I’m doing looking over these files. What am I hoping to find exactly? And, if I find something, who am I gonna call? WHISP-busters? Crone? I slam the folder shut and push the stack away from me. Maybe I am obsessed. Maybe my getting tossed off the case is a wake-up call, and the voice on the other end of the line is saying, ‘Get over it, Harbinger. You did the best you could and now it’s time to get on with your life. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to Ben and Lincoln.’
So, is this it? Am I giving it up? Just like that? I can’t fool myself into thinking a part of me doesn’t want to. It would be so much easier to pack these files up, put them in a box, head into the living room, plop down on the couch, and turn on a Sandra Bullock flick. I sit there searching my soul for a good long time, but I just can’t do it. I’m not that person. Never was. I need to figure something out. I need more information. I need—
My cell phone rings. The display tells me it’s Crone and my heart instantly turns to lead in my chest. I seriously consider not answering before I remember I practically begged him to keep me in the loop, and his calling probably means he wasn’t nearly falling off his desk laughing at my expense this morning.
“Harbinger.”
“It’s time to celebrate, partner. We found her.”
“Found who?”
“Seriously? The copycat. She even confessed.”
Chapter Thirty-One
“A new company with a novel idea is making a name for itself in the porn ind
ustry. ShadowSexx makes films which depict WHISPs having sex. Founder, Hernando Smith, says no CGI is used in his films, but that lining up the actors’ WHISPs has proved challenging.”
HBO Special “The Future of Sex”
When I get off the phone with Crone, I have no idea what I’ve said to him. I’m not sure what I thought I’d feel when they caught the right-handed imposter, but it isn’t this stewing impotence, this sense of uselessness and doubt. They’d caught the copycat. The case was all wrapped up with a nice neat bow and I didn’t even get to be there for it. Except it wasn’t. Or was it? No, screw that. I’m in way too deep to start questioning my sanity again. But now I don’t even have Crone on my side. I’m all alone, or, at least, I will be until there’s another murder while Chester and the copycat are incarcerated. Will the NYPD go chasing after another fictional cult member?
But I can’t wait for that to happen. I can’t see glossy photos of another mutilated victim just so I can be validated. Think, Harbinger, think dammit. Pacing, along the path in my file-strewn office, I try to come up with some semblance of a plan. In order to stop the killing, I have to stop either Chester or Ray. To stop Ray, I need to know where she’s going to strike, only Chester could have connections to places I don’t even know about. I need to get the WHISP to come to a place I already know about. My mind tallies through locations and one sticks out. Chester’s old apartment could work if I’m able to call in a favor.
Now I have a place in mind, I need to figure out a way to lure Chester’s WHISP there or get Chester to send her there. To do that, I’m going to have to go see her and probably get her riled up again, and I need to do it sooner rather than later. While everyone at the precinct already knows I’ve been thrown off the case, I’m hoping Coppola didn’t call Rikers and ban me from visitation with Chester. Probably, he didn’t have time with the apprehension of the copycat and the solving of this big, public case. I check my watch. It’s still just within visiting hours.
