Superhero Detective Series (Book 5): Accused Hero

by Brasher, Darius

  “She knows that Ethan is bi and that he was with a man when his wife was killed. According to Ethan, she’s only interested in a good time and couldn’t care less about what Ethan does when he’s not with her. But does she know about me specifically?” Santiago shook his head. “No. Only Ethan knows my secret. And now you.”

  Santiago let out a long, frustrated breath. “And now that you know about me and Ethan, what are you going to do?”

  I thought about it for a moment.

  “Hell if I know,” I said. That was often the case. Why should now be any different?

  CHAPTER 10

  “I’m sorry I lied to you,” Maureen Jansen said, though she didn’t sound it. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, accenting the patrician lines of her face. “But it was for a good cause. I don’t believe for one second that Ethan killed Sabrina. I don’t want an innocent man to go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  Maureen and I sat at a corner table in Mario’s Italian Kitchen and Wine Bar, a small eatery not too far from my office. Maureen had agreed to meet me here as I wanted to talk to her again now that I knew she had lied to me and the police. We were in public because, after her behaving like a cat in heat when we first met, I didn’t want to be alone with her. An ounce of cape chaser molestation prevention was worth a pound of cure. That Ben Franklin was ahead of his time.

  It was close to dinner time, and Mario’s was transitioning from being packed with weary workers looking for a quick nip to fortify them against what faced them at home to being packed with hungry diners. Tonight Maureen had on an above-the-knee, black and red A-line skirt. She had the sort of skinny, undefined legs that women admired and men didn’t. I still looked at them, though. Perhaps I could learn to admire them. Close-mindedness was a vice. I had an unquenchable thirst for self-improvement.

  I also had an unquenchable thirst for the vodka tonics I was drinking. I tried to pace myself as I spoke with Maureen. It didn’t pay to fall flat on your face in front of a witness. Despite my effort to take it easy, my tongue was starting to feel a little thick. I was in good company. Maureen had been drinking dirty martinis like they were water.

  “Other than the lie Ethan concocted and got you to sell to the police, you don’t know anything else pointing toward Ethan’s guilt or innocence?”

  “Not a thing. Believe me, I wish I did.” The difference in her eyes’ colors was still distracting. I didn’t know which eye to focus on. The vodka tonics weren’t helping with that.

  “I wish you did too.” I squinted. Maybe her legs weren’t as bad as I thought.

  Maureen shook her head. “Such a damned shame.” Her words were a bit slurred thanks to the martinis she had thrown back. “Not only has Ethan lost a wife and a son, but it looks like he’s going to lose his freedom and money too. Even if he isn’t found guilty, I don’t know how he’ll be able to operate as a Hero again. I mean, who’s going to trust him after all this bad publici—” She trailed off. “Ow!” she suddenly exclaimed. “Let go of my arm. You’re hurting me.”

  “Not until you tell me how you knew Sabrina was having a boy.”

  Maureen blinked a couple of times. “Huh? I guess Ethan must have told me.”

  I shook my head, trying to clear the thickness caused by the alcohol. “He says he didn’t know the sex. He still doesn’t even though I offered to tell him.”

  “Then I must have read it in the paper or seen it on the news.”

  “The cops haven’t released any of that information to the press.” My heart rose to my throat. There was only one way Maureen could know Sabrina was having a boy:

  If Maureen had seen him herself.

  Before that realization had fully sunk in, Maureen’s eyes flashed. Her green eye turned as blue as her right one for an instant and they both shone, as if lit up from inside her skull with a flashlight. The color change and light flash was gone so quickly that if I had blinked, I would have missed it.

  Not that I could blink anyway. My eyelids were frozen open, like they were stuck windows. I tried to stand, but couldn’t. I couldn’t open my mouth to speak, or to cry out. I could not move at all. I was as immobile as a portrait. I could think normally, but I was unable to act at all. It was like trying to turn on a light that was part of a broken circuit—the electricity was there, but it couldn’t reach the bulb to do anything.

  Maureen pried my frozen fingers off her arm. Though I could not move them myself, they seemed as pliant as Silly Putty to her touch.

  Maureen shook her head ruefully. She drained the rest of her martini. She carefully wiped her mouth with her napkin. Blood-red lipstick stained the white cloth despite her care.

  “Cockiness,” she said. “It gets you every time. What does the Bible say? ‘Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.’ There’s lots of practical wisdom in that book amid all the Bronze Age nonsense.” She sighed. “I never should have met you for drinks. The alcohol’s gone to my head and made me make a slip I never would have otherwise.

  “Can I tell you a story, Truman?” I could not answer if I had wanted to. Maureen smiled slightly. “I’ll take your silence as assent. I grew up in a very traditional home with very religious Baptist parents. Dad was the breadwinner and Mom was the homemaker. That was just the way it was and, according to them, the way it should be. To them, a woman’s primary and most important job was to be a mother. I absorbed what my parents taught, and believed them with every fiber of my being when I was a child. My job was to be a mommy.

  “As a result, I’ve been obsessed with babies for as long as I can remember. Even when I was a little girl and practically still a baby myself. All I wanted to do was grow up and have a houseful of babies. When adults would ask, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ my answer was always, ‘A mommy.’ No other role but that of a mother ever held any appeal to me. As far as I was concerned, that was what God put me on this planet to do.

  “My obsession with babies extended to pregnant women. None of that stork or cabbage patch nonsense from my parents—even when I was little I knew babies came out of their mothers’ bodies. I had a game, one I played whenever I saw a pregnant woman. I called it Boy or Girl. I’d run up to the pregnant women I saw, put my hands on their bellies—it’s shocking the liberties people will let a cute little girl take—and guess if they were having a girl or a boy. I guessed right far more often than I guessed wrong. It was like I had a sixth sense.

  “As I got older, I stopped playing Boy or Girl. Pregnant women are less patient when an older child tries to touch them. It was just as well. As the Good Book says, when you stop being a child, you must put aside childish things. As I grew out of childhood and into young womanhood, I eagerly looked forward to the happy time I would finally be able to satisfy my life’s purpose and have children of my own.

  “Over time, I grew as other girls did: I got taller, I sprouted breasts, I stopped seeing boys as only loud annoyances and started seeing them as something far more intriguing. But, something also happened to other girls that hadn’t happened to me: they started getting their periods. I didn’t. By the time I was sixteen my mother and I were sufficiently concerned about the fact I had never met Aunt Flo that she took me to a doctor.” Maureen’s mismatched eyes held great sadness. “It turns out I have something called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome. Quite a mouthful, isn’t it? MRKH syndrome can take several different forms, but with me it took the form of being born without a uterus. I would never have a period, never grow a child in my body, never give birth, and never fulfill my only purpose in life. Do you mind if I have your drink? You haven’t touched it in forever, and our waitress is nowhere to be seen. Thanks, you’re a doll.”

  Maureen grabbed my half-drunk vodka tonic and took a long swallow.

  “Whew! They don’t shortchange you on the vodka in this place, do they? Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. My MRKH diagnosis. I’ll tell you the truth, Truman—I went a little crazy there for a while. I
t just wasn’t fair. So many women had no interest in ever having a child, yet they had fully functioning reproductive systems. And I, who wanted nothing more than to be a mother, couldn’t be one.” Maureen shook her head in disbelief. “It’s interesting how God works, though. He takes one thing away, but he gives you something else in exchange.

  “Shortly after I entered puberty, I developed Metahuman abilities. As you know, puberty is usually when your powers first manifest. Something to do with your body’s hormonal changes, I think. Regardless, I soon had the power to temporarily freeze people at will. If they looked me in the eye, I could make them as still as statues for a while. I didn’t register my new ability with the government as the Hero Act says I’m supposed to, of course. As far as I was concerned, my power was none of the government’s business. Only fools follow all the rules society says you’re supposed to.

  “After I was diagnosed with MRKH, I was half-crazy with grief over the children I would never have. Every pregnant woman I saw was a slap in the face, a reminder of what I would never be. But I was still obsessed with them, and what their bodies could do that mine couldn’t.

  “And then I remembered my childhood game: Boy or Girl. Maybe playing my silly little game would make me feel better, I thought.

  “So, late one afternoon, I walked up to a pregnant lady I had seen around the neighborhood. She was one of those pregnant women who hadn’t gained much weight anywhere but her midsection. Though otherwise thin, she looked like she was smuggling a giant bowling ball under her shirt. I asked her if she was having a girl or a boy. She told me she didn’t know. So I froze her with my powers, dragged her into the alley, cut her open, and found out.”

  Maureen’s eyes were distant, as if she was reliving the moment. Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled at the memory.

  “A boy, as it turned out. Not a bouncing baby boy, though. I threw him up against the alley wall to find out. He didn’t bounce at all. More like splattered, really.” Her mismatched eyes were full of curiosity as they regarded my frozen ones. “Do you suppose they call them bouncing baby boys simply because of the alliteration? I’ll have to Google it later.”

  As Maureen spoke, I tried to marshal my powers. Normally, without moving, I could immobilize or even kill someone in several different ways. But now, I couldn’t seem to trigger my powers at all. They were like a gun I could see but that was just outside of my reach.

  “I gave up entirely on my childhood goals of getting married and having a family,” Maureen said. “What kind of wife could I be to a future husband if I couldn’t produce a child for him? In a way, however, the babies I started cutting out of pregnant women were almost as good as having my own children. They didn’t cry very much, and usually not at all. And, I didn’t have to support them and put them through college. Every cloud has its rainbow.

  “I played Boy or Girl with several different women during my teens and early twenties. I had to be careful, of course, to make sure no one saw me playing my game. Not everyone is as much into innocent game-playing as I am. When I moved to Astor City a couple of years ago, I resolved to stop playing the game altogether out of fear of getting caught.

  “And then I met Massive Force. Ethan was the richest, handsomest, most powerful man I ever met. I immediately fell madly in love with him, despite what I told you before. I hope you’ll forgive me for telling you a fib. I didn’t want you to share with Ethan how I felt about him. That’s right, he didn’t know I was in love with him. Despite all the men and women he’s slept with while married to Sabrina, he was very much in love with that fat cow. If I had told Ethan how I really felt about him, he would have dropped me in a New York minute. He was only looking for fun, something disposable, not for a relationship.

  “Given time, I thought I could change Ethan’s mind. I mean, have you seen Sabrina? She looks like a pig who’s learned to walk upright. She didn’t deserve someone like Ethan. But then Ethan told me she was pregnant and that, once the baby arrived, he would stop seeing me and everyone else he diddled.

  “I wondered if I could have held onto Ethan or even stolen him away from Sabrina if I too could give him a baby. Once again my body was betraying me, coming between me and happiness.

  “I decided if I couldn’t have Ethan, nobody else could either. Ethan had mentioned the last night we were together that he was going to see his boyfriend on the twelfth and break things off with him too. I knew his boyfriend was named Santiago and where he lived since I had followed Ethan there one night after he left my place.

  “On the twelfth, when I knew Ethan was away with Santiago, I went to Ethan’s house. I froze Sabrina as soon as she answered the door. I dragged her inside, and ripped her clothes off. She had big, fat, hanging breasts, like a cow’s udders. So disgusting. I don’t know how Ethan held his nose long enough to impregnate her. I got naked too. I wanted to make sure she saw what a real woman looks like. I told her Ethan always said I had the most perfect body he’d ever seen. He’d never said that to me, the blind bastard, but he should have. The other reason I took my clothes off was I didn’t want to get blood on them. Unlike Sabrina, I take pride in my appearance.

  “Sabrina didn’t know their baby’s sex, Ethan had said. It was time to play Boy or Girl again. I got a butcher knife out of the kitchen. I had on the gloves I had brought with me. I cut the baby out of Sabrina. A doctor performing a Caesarean couldn’t have done it better. I showed Sabrina it was a boy.” Maureen’s eyes danced with anger. “And you know that fat hippo didn’t even have the courtesy to thank me? Some people just don’t have any manners. People like that don’t deserve to live. So I stabbed that rude bitch and put her out of her misery.

  “I cleaned myself off with the towels I’d brought with me, put the towels in a trash bag, and got dressed again. I left, taking the trash bag and the knife with me. I had a copy of both Ethan’s house and car keys thanks to impressions of his keys I’d made weeks before while he had been asleep in my bed. I locked up after myself. I drove to Santiago’s house, stopping to deposit the trash bag in a garbage bin on the way. I stashed the bloody knife in the trunk of Ethan’s car.

  “Imagine my surprise when Ethan came to me days later and asked me to lie about him being with me the night his wife died.” Maureen looked gleeful. She clapped her hands together like a tickled little girl. I desperately wanted to slap that look off her face, but I still could not move a muscle. My dry eyes, unable to blink, were beginning to hurt. “I agreed, of course. It meant Ethan didn’t suspect what I had done. Also, I was in a win-win situation. If Ethan was found guilty and he went to jail, then no one would get to have him: not Santiago, not me, nobody. Well, Tyrone in cell block C, maybe. But if he was acquitted because of my testimony or the state decided to not prosecute him at all, then I would be the hero of the day. Surely Ethan would love me then.”

  Maureen’s blue and green eyes shone maniacally. I couldn’t decide if she was evil, crazy, or a whole lot of both.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you all this,” she said. “Well, for one thing, you’re a good listener. You don’t jump in all the time with a bunch of dumb questions, and you don’t try to steer the conversation back to yourself. Conversation is a dying art. Don’t you agree? No, don’t answer. I can see that you do. For another, I’ve been just dying to share my exploits with someone. It’s like being a brilliant painter whose work must always remain hidden. Sharing my adventures with you has already made me so happy. And what’s the harm in sharing, really? If you tell the police what I told you, I’ll tell them it’s just the ravings of a drunk. I’ve asked around about you, of course. You’re getting quite the reputation as a lush. Who’re the cops gonna believe? An alcoholic with an itch to get his client off the hook and to redeem himself for past failures, or sweet little ol’ me, an attractive white woman from a good family with no criminal record? I like my chances.” She burped delicately into her hand. “I’ve had a fair amount to drink tonight myself. That’s another reason why I’v
e turned into quite the Chatty Cathy.”

  Maureen drained the rest of my drink. Despite my prayers, she didn’t choke on it. She smacked her lips with satisfaction.

  “And even if the police were inclined to believe you, there’s zero proof of what I’ve done. I was careful that there not be. I’m always careful. Practice makes perfect. All the evidence points squarely at Ethan. If you do tell the cops about me, there’s no way they’ll be able to pin anything on me. All you’ll accomplish is to cast doubt on me as an alibi witness. Santiago, too, if he can find his way out of the closet he’s lost in long enough to come forward on Ethan’s behalf. ‘If Massive Force can convince that lovely Miss Jansen to lie for him, surely he can get that fag Santiago to lie for him too,’ the cops will think.”

  Maureen smiled boozily at me. She cupped my cheek in her hand. If it weren’t frozen, my skin would have crawled.

  “If you’re smart and don’t want an innocent man to go to jail, you’ll keep everything I told you to yourself and hope I’m a convincing enough storyteller to get a jury to let Ethan go free. It’s his only chance, really.”

  Maureen patted my cheek. “I had half a mind to seduce you before. You’re cute, despite the fact you’re a drunk.” She stood, swaying before she caught herself on the edge of the table. “Tonight, it looks like I’m the pot calling the kettle black. Be a sweetheart and pay the bill when it comes. And don’t worry. The effects of my power will wear off shortly. Otherwise I just know you’d see me out. You strike me as a gentleman. If we weren’t in public, I’d be the one seeing you out. Permanently. That way nobody would have to fret over what you’ll do with the stories I’ve shared with you. But that’s all right. I trust you’ll do the right thing at the end of the day.”

  Maureen suddenly grinned happily.

  “You know the best part of this whole thing with Sabrina? It reminded me of how fun Boy or Girl is. Maybe I’ll start playing my silly little game again.”