Booked for Murder

by RJ Blain

  “What? It’s not like I stalk you. You usually just make poor Mickey…” My mouth dropped open, and my eyes widened. “You’re marrying Mickey? Mousey, terrified of blood, views people as research subjects if weird magic is involved Mickey?”

  “Yeah. This is not public information, so even before I got dragged into this, I was already going to be dragged into this. There is zero way he could have been involved. He faints at the thought of blood. He’s going to be in therapy for life after this. He got blood on his face, Janette.”

  Poor Mickey. “Is he going to be able to be in the cell?”

  “He’ll love the research element, as long as we dodge any pictures of blood. Hell, maybe it’ll help him with his problem, as he’ll have to do a lot of research to figure out how the killer—or killers—pulled this off. He called me last night and ranted about it for an hour. He’ll be on the same page. He didn’t like people accusing him of a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “Nobody likes it.”

  “Yeah, well, that sort of accusation could land him in maximum security for life. He’s worried he’ll be arrested, and he can’t even stand the sight of blood without it getting to him. He’s going to need a lot of therapy to cope with this.”

  “There’s going to be a lot of blood in his future,” I warned.

  “I tried to tell him marriage was a bloody business, but he just told me I was worth it. I didn’t have a comeback line for that.”

  I wouldn’t have had one, either. “All right. So Mickey is in, he just doesn’t know it yet. What do you think about Meridian? She has the accounting skills we need.”

  “And an even bigger mouth, which will be a problem,” Beatrice warned. “I don’t know if we can control her tendency to gossip. We could put her on the accounting work without telling her what, precisely, we’re working on—and we can have her help with research, but I wouldn’t have her doing any interviews. She might be able to do some basic spying on the patrons. Her memory is good, but her mouth runneth over.”

  “True.” Of the people in the room, Bradley’s mother would be the most useful resource for handling a gossip. “Thoughts, Mrs. Hampton?”

  “We need an accountant, but the accountant need not be a part of the active investigator group. But if she’s half as smart as you believe, she can figure out what we’re doing from the receipts. I don’t know the specifics of filing taxes for the investigator cells.”

  “It’s quarterly,” Bradley said, and he snagged a piece of paper from the coffee table, reading it over. “Investigator cells are required to relinquish all expense sheets at the demand of the government. There’s a very simple solution to that problem.”

  Since when could anything in my life actually be simple? “There is?”

  “The cell doesn’t claim any expenses and works as a non-profit. If there are no payments rendered and no expenses incurred, there’s nothing for the accountant to do except keep records of the cell’s permits and licensing fees. Essentially, you work pro bono, which can have benefits as a private investigator cell. You still qualify, but you’re far less likely to be audited by the government, as there’s no money trail for them to follow. Should she prove trustworthy, then you can ease her into more responsibilities within the cell.”

  I could work with that. “Beatrice?”

  “I like it. I’ll skip the paycheck to make sure these assholes go to prison where they belong—or you get a hold of them so they can’t pull that shit again.”

  “That leaves Mr. Tawnlen.”

  Beatrice waved off my concern. “He’ll do it because he wants to protect his people. When he finds out you’re a prime suspect, he’ll want to either prove your innocence or your guilt. All things considered, it’ll be simple enough to prove your innocence.”

  “It’s hard to be in two places at the same time.”

  “Right. And a lot of people witnessed you hobbling down the street at the time of the murder. You’re pretty distinctive, especially with those damned gaudy glasses.”

  “My glasses are not gaudy.”

  “They’re gaudy.” Beatrice pointed at my purple winged frames. “If those get any bigger, they’ll take flight and run away on you.”

  “But I like them.”

  Jezabella laughed. “I think they’re cute. I don’t remember you wearing glasses.”

  “Head trauma from the crash. I’m lucky that my prescription doesn’t change much, but the accident broke something in my head, and it damaged my vision. They’re not really sure what happened, as my eyes seem okay under the scans, but they won’t focus properly. They suspect some form of brain damage in the occipital lobe.”

  “Could you repeat that in English?” the young woman requested.

  I chuckled and tapped my forehead. “The frontal lobe is here. That’s the part responsible for most cognitive activity and voluntary movement.” I tapped on the top of my head towards the back. “The parietal lobe is a pretty cool one. It controls how you perceive taste, touch, general movement, and things like that. That’s a very broad generalization, as it’s a little more complicated than that.”

  Jezabella rolled her eyes. “We’re talking about brains here. That’s already complicated. How do you even know this stuff?”

  Before I had a chance to reply, Bradley said, “Before she signed her contract with us, she wanted to be a nurse. At the time, exsanguinators had an even worse reputation than they do now, so no medical school would take her. That didn’t stop her interest in the human body. And that desire to be a nurse is what made my mother interested in having her permanently. Someone who wants to be a nurse is typically a nurturing individual, driven to help others.”

  As I couldn’t argue with him, I shrugged. “I volunteered sometimes in the trauma ward.”

  “They don’t care if she’s a certified nurse when they have someone bleeding out in their ER entry and she can just walk over and take over for their heart until the doctors can fix the underlying problems. She’s actually the reason exsanguinators are desired in the medical field now. She would sit in the ER waiting room and help out whenever a trauma patient would come in. She’d report to the nurses at the desk she was there and list her skills, and they’d inform triage. Whenever they got that sort of trauma headed their way, they’d call her in. I’ve snuck into the ER a few times to watch her work.”

  He had? I frowned, wondering how I hadn’t noticed him.

  “You were elbow deep in blood trying to stop a bullet through the heart from killing somebody. The guy was shot right outside the ER, and you heard the gunfire.”

  Ah. I remembered that. It’d been an eight-hour battle, one worth the while because he’d survived, but for those eight hours, I had been his everything, functioning as his heart and lungs because his were almost beyond salvation. “Ah. You must have been in the parking lot.”

  “I’d borrowed a friend’s car.”

  “I remember that,” Mrs. Hampton said, and her smile had a sad edge to it. “You called and asked me why Janette was a bodyguard instead of a nurse, and I had to explain to you why she wouldn’t have been able to get the job she wanted. I’d pulled a few strings with the local hospitals to ignore her presence and give her a chance. As soon as they figured out she knew the human body about as well as they did, and the only thing she didn’t know was how to work the machines because she was barred from getting the education she wanted, they let her volunteer. It didn’t hurt that their death rates plummeted whenever she was in the ER. She can’t quite stop death completely, but she proved the value of exsanguinators in trauma situations.”

  I shrugged. “We lost a lot of people.”

  “You saved many more than you lost, and don’t you forget that. You’ll likely be able to do most of the forensics work, but having Mr. Tawnlen as part of the team will give you a lot more good information. You’re better at the live bodies. He understands the ins and outs of the bodies after death. Between the two of you, you’ll be able to get the whole story of a murder
. That is the information that allows the defense or prosecution to get the appropriate verdict by the end of the trial.” Bradley’s mother paced around my living room, and she scowled, staring at the entry to my bedroom. “There are too many possibilities for who killed that twat and why.”

  “Could you not call him a twat, Mother? He’s dead. Have some respect.”

  “Boy, you know I love you, but the man was a twat. He’s no better than that Equalizers group that acts like it wants to help the low rated folks but in reality is nothing more than a terrorist group wishing to overthrow the government so they can take over and do what they want with society instead. And their way of doing things won’t really help anybody. It’s just a different way of doing things.”

  “Equalizers?” I asked, wondering if someone had mentioned the name before and I’d forgotten or missed it.

  Bradley sighed. “That’s what the cops call an up-and-coming radical group out to change the system. They don’t actually have a name, but they’re that group we were talking about who might want to peg the killings on adepts to draw attention away from themselves. Part of their gig is that they don’t have an organized public structure. No name, nothing. They lurk in the shadows, draw in people who want to see substantial change in society, and then operate as a terrorist cell—but one that never claims its kills. That’s why I’m wondering if they might be behind Godrin’s death. It’s the sort of thing they would do. They hate adepts, but they hate our form of government more. But considering the nature of the bill the victims were trying to push through, it could be anybody, and that’s a real problem.”

  “It’s the kind of bill I can foresee people violently protesting over if it were to reach the President’s desk,” I muttered. “I’d be tempted to join them, and I’m an adept.”

  Bradley’s mother nodded. “That’s because your parents aren’t, and you know what it would do to them. It’s perfectly reasonable for you to want to do that. It makes me wonder if they did want to frame you, because you’re the kind of person they would believe capable and willing to use your magic to go on a murder spree to stop that law. The first killing happened before any news outlets reported the crash, and the media only stated that my son had walked with minor injuries and that the driver and passenger of the other vehicle had both died. There was no mention of you, mostly because you had already been pulled from the car and taken to the nearest hospital. They stabilized you, and then we sent you out west, as you were beyond what they could readily handle, and there was a specialty hospital for severe trauma there. It was a good decision, seeing that you’re back on your feet despite that boot you wear. Worth every penny of the bill, as far as I’m concerned. We’ll be having a talk about your disappearing act though, young lady.”

  Crap. When Bradley’s mother pulled out the young lady line, I didn’t need a map to identify I’d wandered straight into trouble. “Can I take a rain check on that?”

  “No.”

  “Excuse me, but can we go back to the discussion of the brain lobes? That seems a lot safer and more relevant.” Jezebella tapped at her head in the rough vicinity of her parietal lobe. “We left off here, and I still don’t understand why you’re wearing glasses.”

  I grinned, and grateful for the temporary escape from a scolding, I tapped on the back of my head. “This is roughly where the occipital lobe is, and that’s where the brain does most of the vision work, although the temporal lobe is also important, which is in the lower middle of the brain. The temporal lobe is a big one, and it is where your memories are generally stored. The temporal lobe also integrates your memories with your other senses. But the occipital lobe is what was primarily damaged in the crash. It was likely due to a severe concussion or blunt-force trauma. I was never given a definitive reason on the cause of the damage. And since I was comatose, my magic was useless. Had I been conscious, I could have handled any bleeding associated with the concussion on my own.”

  The swelling part was an issue, but doctors could handle that; the bleeding associated with trauma-induced concussions could become lethal quickly.

  How I had survived would forever remain a mystery.

  “How about the bits with your memory? Was that damaged?”

  Unable to help myself, I smiled and replied, “I don’t remember.”

  It took a full three seconds for Jezabella to comprehend what I’d said, and she glowered at me. “Beatrice is right. You’re a bitch.”

  I grinned. “I am.”

  Bradley gaped at me. “Did you just pun Jez?”

  “Absolutely. I absolutely did just pun Jez.”

  “About your serious injuries involving your brain?”

  “It’s either laugh or cry. I’m done with crying. I’m disabled. I’ve accepted that. I’m doing my best to beat it, but the hard reality is? It’s entirely possible I can’t. Because of my current rating and the fact I can walk, however painfully and unreliably, I simply don’t qualify for disability. They have some pretty strict rules about who gets a paycheck from the government. I’m one of the lucky ones. The library is willing to accommodate my disability. And don’t you even think about telling me it’s not a disability. It is. Get used to it and accept it, because you’ll have to work with me. I do as much as I can around my circumstances, but I do have limitations. Qualifying for the shooter position will be a problem. I recognize this. If the testing is that stringent, I’ll have to do it without painkillers, too. The boot will let me, but afterwards? I probably won’t be able to walk for a few days.”

  I’d hate it, as I’d done my best to graduate to stubbornly refusing a wheelchair. I no longer owned one, as most places in the city just weren’t designed for the physically impaired. Handicap ramps were a dream within a dream, although my branch of the library had a ramp, and if a patron couldn’t access something on another floor due to the building’s ancient design, we fetched it for them and made them as welcome as we could on the first floor.

  It usually worked.

  I still hated New York’s endless steps.

  The silence dragged on, and I slapped my leg with the papers I held. “Shit happens. Life isn’t fair, and it never will be fair. We can just do the best we can and hope it’s enough. Right now, we have a job to do. And if it means I have to cover my disability for a few hours and hope I don’t do irreversible damage to my foot, so be it. I need to qualify as the shooter, and I’m the one most likely to qualify. End of story. If we want to get Mr. Tawnlen in on this, we need to stop goofing off and get to work. We have six murders with all of the victims killed in the same way. The way is complicated, meant to emulate an exsanguinator. They might be hiding an exsanguinator’s work for all we know by adding other abilities into the fray to help cover their tracks. We need to know who did it, why they did it, how they did it, and when they did it. Once we have that information, we have to prove it without a shadow of a doubt—and hope that we can stop them before they strike again. That’ll be the hard part, because until we know the answers to all of those questions, we can’t really begin to guess who might be next.”

  “Senator Smithhall, Senator Paulsonelli, and Senator Westonhaus. Representative Halle, Representative Islanney, and Representative Dougherty are possibilities as well, although the past victims have all had closer ties to the Senate rather than the House of Representatives. We don’t know if the attacks have primarily affected the Senate because of general political affiliations or not. The House of Representatives is generally warmer to the idea of major changes to the government in terms of civil rights for those with moderate magical aptitude.” Bradley wrinkled his nose. “President Greene is also a supporter of substantial change to the current political landscape.”

  I avoided politics and news as much as my job allowed due to my constant exposure to politicians at work. “Can you elaborate on that somewhat? Frankly, I see politicians at work most days of the week, and I don’t want to take my work home with me.”

  “He won the vote because he appealed to
the lower ratings, and they outnumber adepts by a significant number. His campaign promised improved rights to those with lower ratings. In some ways, he’s delivered, but in many other ways, all he’s actually done is widen the divide between the various talent groups within our society. He is an adept, but he has a reputation of disapproving of how adepts function in society.”

  “Well, we’re assholes and act like the lower talents are there to do what we need or make us money. Many sensible people won’t like that. It’s a very unfair distribution of power. A lot of adepts build their fortunes on the backs of others, and most don’t have the decency to compensate them fairly. That’s been a trait in society long before people realized we used magic in our day-to-day lives.” I shrugged, sifting through my stack of papers until I found the historic timeline of the use of magic. “There are records indicating magic has been used in society even in prehistory. We just didn’t know what it was until recent times. Society has always taken advantage of the people. Society likely always will. But in our current age, adepts rule the roost and gain a lot of resentment from those beneath them. Not all adepts are like that, but so many are that the general population does believe we’re all like that.”

  The possibility of rebellion worried me, as in raw numbers those with lower ratings significantly outnumbered adepts.

  Adepts, however, could kill thousands with a sweep of a perfectly manicured hand. Had I been drafted, I’d be in the front lines expected to kill people in the hundreds or more. A single burst vessel in the right place in the body killed. I could kill quickly, and I could kill often.

  The Hampton family had spared me from the possibility of being drafted. The government had to buy a for life contract for a minimum of three times the lifetime value of the contract, and should death occur, the payment jumped to a staggering twenty times the lifetime value of the contract.

  The Hamptons had paid a ridiculous amount of money for my life, and I doubted any one of the Hamptons would sign off on the sale.

  Then, even if the government got through the Hamptons as a hurdle, I had to consent to the sale, the one right I had left. I couldn’t realistically sever the contract, but I could refuse a sale of my contract.