I went inside the brownstone. At some point in the building’s history, it had been divided into two living quarters. A smell wafted from behind the door of the first floor apartment. I could not figure out exactly what the smell was, but whatever it was, it was mouth-watering. Breakfast seemed like a long time ago. Maybe I would knock on the first floor door after I finished with Singleton and ask if could join them for lunch. But, first things first.
I walked up the stairs to where Singleton lived. She stood slightly behind her open door. She was over a head shorter than I. She was barefoot and dressed in grey sweatpants and an untucked denim shirt. Her toes were painted pink with tiny little white flowers on them. Girly. Girly was too small of a word to describe her chest, though. When I had seen her seated the day before, I had thought she was merely stout. Now that I saw her standing for the first time, I could see she had very large, matronly breasts. Having heard that most women did not enjoy having their breasts stared at, I avoided doing so. Singleton’s co-worker Lopez could have taken a lesson from me in how to not make people feel uncomfortable.
Singleton opened her door wider to let me in. She did not look particularly happy about it. She looked at me with caution. As I walked past her, I saw there were fine lines on her forehead, around her mouth, and on her neck. I saw now she was at in her mid-forties, and maybe even in her early fifties. I would have guessed she was at least a decade younger the day before. Black don’t crack. It sounded much cooler when black people said it.
I sensed that Singleton’s heart was beating fast. She closed the door behind me. There were several windows, the blinds of which had been opened. Sunlight streamed in, making everything bright and cheerful.
“How did you find out where I live?” Singleton asked. Her voice was neutrally inquisitive. I shrugged modestly.
“I’m a detective,” I simply said. She did need to know that I had asked Warden Sakey for her address and work hours. He had pulled it up on his computer, albeit reluctantly, when we returned to his office. It was better to let Singleton think I was some sort of investigative wizard. A magician never revealed his secrets.
I smiled at her reassuringly. She looked anything but reassured. Singleton looked like someone who was becoming more and more afraid, and yet was desperately trying to hide that fact. Her heart was still beating a mile a minute. It would have been flattering to think her heart was racing because Singleton was overwhelmed by my masculine presence. Shockingly, not nearly as many women were overwhelmed by my masculine presence as I would have liked. My animal magnetism was not the cause of Singleton’s physical reactions to me. She was nervous or afraid or both. She mostly kept it off her face, though. I would be sure to never play poker against her.
I glanced around Singleton’s place. It appeared to take up the entire second floor of the brownstone. Three things jumped out at me. The first was that her place was very neat and clean. If Singleton used a cleaning service, I would have to get the name of her housekeeper before I left. Though I was on the neat side myself, Singleton’s place made mine look like a pig sty hit by a hurricane by comparison. It looked like there was a place for everything and everything was in its place. If Singleton was not ex-military, I would eat my gun.
The second thing that struck me was a large painting that hung on the wall across from me. It was a depiction of Jesus’ Last Supper, but with a twist I had not seen before. A haloed Jesus was in the middle foreground, with his back to me. His twelve apostles were all black men, and more specifically, historically significant black men. I spotted Martin Luther King Junior, Malcolm X, Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, and Elijah Muhammad. The others I did not recognize. I was not one of the men depicted. Though I was not black, Shadow was a friend of mine. She was black. Surely that counted for something. The artist who made this painting clearly believed otherwise. I considered telling Singleton that one of my best friends was black. I did not. I knew that black people tended to not find a white person saying “My best friend is black” as ingratiating as white people hoped it would be. Shocking, but true.
The third thing I noticed about Singleton’s place was not a thing at all. It was a person. An elderly black woman with her steel grey hair in a bun was seated in a big brown armchair. The chair was in front of a flat screen television mounted on the wall. The woman had on a white nightgown and a pink bathrobe. Her body was sunk in on itself a bit, in that slowly collapsing look old people’s bodies sometimes tended to have. The woman did not acknowledge or even seem to notice my entrance. There was a faint but vacant smile on her face, as if she was thinking of a pleasant memory from long ago. A half-eaten plate of food was on a television tray in front of her. An I Love Lucy episode was playing on the TV, the one where Lucy and her best friend Ethel went to work in a chocolate factory. Lucille Ball was in the middle of being funny without once using a vulgarity or referring to her genitals. Modern television had much to learn from the classics.
Singleton’s gaze followed mine.
“That’s my mother Mabel,” she said.
“I certainly don’t mean to interrupt her meal or her television watching,” I said. “Maybe we should step into another room and speak privately.”
“There’s no need,” Singleton said. “She has advanced stage Alzheimer’s. She’s better some days than others.” A look of sadness and being tired mingled with the caution in her eyes. “This is not one of the better days. She doesn’t even know you’re here. Her awareness of me being here comes and goes.”
“I’m sorry.” I meant it. Singleton shrugged a little.
“It is what it is. I’ve been taking care of Mom for the past few years now. I’m used to it. I have a full-time nurse so I can continue to work, but today is her day off.” She shook her head, stopping herself. Despite the fact I made her nervous, I got the impression Singleton was hungry to talk to someone. Living with someone who could not communicate well must have been paradoxically lonely. “But, you didn’t come here to listen to the life and times of Kierra and Mabel.” She gave me a slight tired smile. When she smiled, the otherwise almost harsh-looking contours of her face changed. She was attractive, though more handsome than pretty. “So what can I do for you?”
“When I asked you and Mr. Lopez yesterday if you had seen anyone in the cell housing the Cube, you both said no. I don’t think you were being honest with me.”
Singleton’s dark face was inscrutable. What was going on in her body was not, though. Her blood pressure spiked, as did her heart and perspiration rate.
“What makes you think that?” she asked. Though I could tell she was trying to keep her voice neutral, an undertone of panic was there.
I shrugged. “I am a detective,” I said again. Once I found a line I liked, I stuck with it. I was Truman the Trite.
Singleton’s eyes quickly flicked over to her mother before they returned to me. “No one has come to visit Chaos,” she said. She could not even look me in the eye. I did not need my powers to tell me that she was lying, though they most definitely were telling me that. She was also afraid of something. I often confronted being lied to by someone with a punch to the gut, but I was not in the habit of punching non-Metahuman women. Especially not in front of their sick mothers. If being willing to punch a man but being reluctant to punch a woman made me a chauvinist, then I was guilty as charged. Besides, my instincts told me this situation called for finesse, not fisticuffs. Everything about Singleton—her no-nonsense military bearing and the fact she was taking care of her sick mother, for example—told me she was a stand-up person. I sensed she just needed a little prompting to tell me the truth.
“Look,” I said, “I’m not trying to cause trouble or get you into trouble. But, I have reason to believe someone who had no business doing so visited Chaos a few weeks ago. Maybe that someone accessed the Cube somehow and drained some of his energy away. I have reason to believe that energy was then used to kill a licensed Hero. I am searching for that person’s killer.” Singleton’
s eyes grew wider as I spoke. “I would appreciate any help you can give me.”
Singleton stared at me for a minute. She looked like she saw the truth of what I was saying in my face. She looked away, towards the floor. She slowly shook her head.
“They told me they were just going to do scientific experiments with that stuff,” she said in a low voice. “Even when they told me, I didn’t really believe it.”
“Who told you?” I pressed.
“John,” she said. She spat the name out like it was a curse word. She shook her head at herself when she saw the look on my face, as if she realized the first name of John was not exactly specific. “John Barrow. Along with me, he’s one of the six MetaHold employees who guards Chaos. Four weeks ago I took a break while at work.” She smiled ruefully. “Well, a nap actually. There is a little alcove next to the control room you saw that has a bathroom and a break area. Although it is MetaHold procedure that two guards are supposed to be in the control room at all times to keep a watch on Chaos and the Cube and cell containing it, since there has never been an incident involving Chaos, we guards have gotten into the habit of taking naps in the break room when we know the warden is not around. One of us always stays on duty when the other takes a nap. That particular day I had guard duty with John. I had been taking extra shifts for extra money. Mom’s nursing care and medication are expensive, and I can use all the money I can get. Anyway, I was exhausted, so I told John I was going to take a nap while he covered the control area. He told me to go ahead. He was acting kind of weird, but I did not think much of anything about it at the time. John is kind of a weird guy most of the time anyway.
“So I went to the alcove to take a nap. Before I dozed off, I could not shake the feeling something was going on. Maybe it was because of how John acted when I told him I was going to take a nap. I don’t know. At any rate, something made me get up and returned to the control room. Someone was in the cell housing the Cube. He was holding a device up to up to it.”
“What kind of device?” I hated to interrupt. Now that I had gotten her talking, Singleton did not seem inclined to stop. A lot of people were like that when they had been holding something in and were finally getting it off their chest. Singleton shook her head.
“I don’t know. I had never seen anything like it before. It was about this big and this wide,” she said, making a shape with her hands the size of an over-inflated football. “It kind of looked like a dumbbell. You know, the weights you work out with. The bells on each end looked to be some sort of electronics; the part in the middle was a clear tube. The man was holding that device pressed up to the Cube, right where the feeding aperture is on it. He must have had it open because as I watched, some of that orange energy you saw rippling off of Chaos filled the tube in the middle of that device.” Singleton shook her head again at the memory of it.
“I’ve got to admit I froze for a moment. It took me a second to get over the shock of seeing someone in the cell. The alarms should have been screaming bloody murder, but they weren’t. I looked at the control board and realized the alarms had been deactivated. I was about to hit the panic button when John stopped me. He grabbed me by the arms and pulled me away from the control panel. Said he had let the guy in there with the Cube. Said the guy was just siphoning some of Chaos’ energy off so he could do some scientific experiments with it. While I tried to break free of John, the man in with the Cube closed the feeding aperture while still holding the device he had up to it. The tube in the middle of the device was then full of Chaos’ energy. The man turned around, and saw me struggling against John through the viewing glass. Then the man disappeared.” She snapped her fingers in front of her face. “Just like that, he was gone. One second he was there, the next he wasn’t. If it weren’t for the fact John was still holding me back, I would have thought I had imagined the whole thing.”
“What did you do after the man disappeared? Did you sound the alarm or report the man’s presence to the warden?” She shook her head again.
“Neither,” she said, looking regretful. I believed she regretted the decision. She did not strike me as good enough actress to dupe me. “John told me he had disabled the alarms and the protective fields long enough to let the man teleport into the cell housing the Cube. He said the guy had approached him weeks before about gaining access. John had told him he was sometimes alone in the control room when his co-worker snuck off to take a nap. The guy had given John a signaling device for John to hit that would alert the teleporter and give him coordinates to hone in on when John was alone in the control booth. John said the guy had assured him he wanted access to Chaos’ energy for research purposes only, and that the research he was working on had the potential to save countless lives. The guy told John he had gone through the proper channels to try to get access to Chaos, but he had been denied because no one was allowed access to Chaos, no exceptions.”
“And John believed all that?” I had a hard time believing a grown man could be that gullible. I wondered if John also still believed in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. I should have gotten into touch with John and seen if he wanted to buy some oceanfront property in the Sahara.
Singleton snorted at my question.
“The only thing John believes in is the almighty dollar. I did not buy for one second John’s song and dance about disabling the alarms for the man because John wanted to advance the frontiers of scientific research and save lives. When I pushed him, threatening to report him to the warden, John admitted the teleporter had paid him to disable the alarm and protective fields and give him access to Chaos’ Cube. That part I believed. John’s got three kids who are college-bound, and he’s always bitching about not having enough money.” Singleton lowered her eyes. She looked both ashamed and embarrassed. “John even gave me some of the money to keep me quiet. My initial instinct was to tell John where he could shove his money, but Mom’s medical bills are so high. Every month is a struggle, and some extra money was always good to have. Besides, I knew if I told the warden what had happened, he would fire me as well as John since I had left my post to go take a nap. I can’t afford to lose this job, not with the condition Mom is in.” She looked back up at me. She looked like she was about to cry. “So I took the money John offered me. Ten thousand dollars. I’ve never been so ashamed in my life. I always believed that if you want money, you earn it honestly. My Dad—God rest his soul—and my Mom taught me that.” Her eyes darted over to her mother again. Mabel was still smiling vacantly at the television, as if her daughter and I were not in the room and did not exist. Perhaps in her mind, we did not. On the television, Lucy was stuffing chocolates down her blouse. I would have to remember that technique the next time I needed to smuggle a gun in somewhere. “So, the day after John gave me the money, I went to him and told him I was going to give it back to him. He must have thought I was going to tell the warden what had happened too because, that night, the same guy who had teleported into Chaos’ holding cell showed up here. In this very room, in fact. He just poof, appeared. I tried to give the money back to him, but he said keep it. He also said if I ran my mouth to the warden that it would be the last words I ever spoke. He said he would kill my mother while I watched, and then me.”
Singleton shook her head in obvious anger and frustration.
“I don’t scare easily. But this guy is a Meta and I’m not. I had no doubt he was capable of doing as he said. Plus, he kinda creeped me out. He talked about killing me and my Mom like I would talk about swatting a fly.”
“So why tell me, then? I’m obviously not the warden, but I’m sure that guy would not be happy about you telling anyone about what you had seen.” Singleton looked stubborn.
“I don’t like someone trying to intimidate me,” she said. “I like someone succeeding in intimidating me even less. Plus, taking that money has been eating away at me. It feels like I stole it. MetaHold expects me to do my job in a certain way for a more than reasonable salary, and I failed spectacular
ly.” She shook her head. “Every time I go to work, I feel like I’m returning to the scene of the crime. I don’t much like that feeling. So when you showed up here somehow knowing I was lying yesterday, I just couldn’t take it anymore. Especially when you said the energy taken from Chaos was used to murder a Hero. I knew that guy wasn’t doing any scientific research,” she said with a snort. She let out a long breath. “Honestly now that I’ve told you, I feel better. Well, a little at least. I’m still going to lose my job when the warden finds out.” She shook her head at herself. “No, not when he finds out—when I tell him. I’ll go to his office first thing tomorrow morning and tell him everything that happened. If that Meta wants to kill me and Mom, well he’ll just have to kill us.” Her face twisted into a grim smile. “I’ll tell you one thing, though—Meta or no Meta, that asshole is gonna know he’s been in a fight.”
I had no doubt Singleton was right. I knew I would not want to tangle with her, and I was a bloody Hero. She clearly was a tough cookie. Despite what she had done, I liked her. I would do what I could to protect her, both from that teleporting Meta and from her losing her sole means of supporting herself and her mother.
Maybe what Shadow always told me was right. Maybe I was just a big softie, an overgrown Boy Scout. Maybe I should have quit the Hero business and become a Scoutmaster. Did the Boy Scouts sell cookies like the Girl Scouts did? I liked cookies. The prospect of all I could eat cookies would be enough to make me hang up my metaphorical cape for good. I turned my thoughts away from cookies back to the matter at hand.
“This teleporter tell you his name?” I asked.
“No.”
“Do you know how to get into touch with him? Finding him will help me figure out who murdered the Hero I told you about.” Singleton said no again. “Well, what about John? Does he know how to get a hold of this teleporting Meta?”
Superhero Detective Series (Book 4): Hunted Page 21
