by R. J. Blain
“Sure. When things quiet down, you can ask all the questions you want, Mickey. Pick your favorite and ask it now, just to get it out of your system a little.”
Once Mickey fixated, if he got no answers, he’d go mad.
“Did you really spray blood six stories up?”
“That’s my record, yes.”
“So that exsanguinator at our library wasn’t all that strong, was he?”
As I was the only known woman with the ability, I ignored his assumption about the exsanguinator’s gender. “I’m not sure it was an exsanguinator—or if it was, the exsanguinator was holding back. I’d say that spray is about average for how the job seems to have been done. Unless we can get access to the body or the full autopsy report, I won’t be able to tell for certain. Mr. Tawnlen? This is more your ballpark than mine.”
“From the little I’ve gotten about the murder, I’d point at telekinesis as the primary culprit behind death and the blood spray, primarily due to the damage to the skull. The force from the skull being ruptured as it was would have accounted for some of the spray, too. The rest is likely theatrics to put the blame on exsanguinators—or possibly an exsanguinator helping to pin the blame on users of your ability. I’m looking into other cases with similar damage to the victims, and I speculate that there is an exsanguinator somehow involved with the killer, but the exsanguinator’s rating is likely somewhat low.”
My ability level gave me almost complete control over blood, while those with lower ratings could do some baseline manipulation of blood, usually in terms of forcing it to exit the body in some fashion or another. My ability to oxygenate blood, handle circulatory flow without the benefit of a heart, and even filter out impurities separated me from most.
I blamed my interest in being a nurse for how my magic had developed.
“Thoughts, Meridian?”
“We’re up a creek without a paddle or a boat until we have more information on potential motivation. Once we have an idea of motivation, we can maybe figure out the who. The cops have been after Mickey like crazy, and he can’t even look at pictures of the crime scene without fainting. They haven’t talked to me much; I guess they don’t think a woman could have pulled the crime off.”
I raised my hand. “Outside of shattering his skull, I definitely could have pulled the crime off.”
Everyone glared at me.
“Behave, Janette,” my mother chided.
“What? I’m just telling the truth. I’m a woman, and I’m definitely capable of pulling off the majority of that crime. The skull, however, is an issue. I can’t do that, not even in my prime on a good day. Well, I guess I could with a baseball bat.”
“The skull was broken outwards, not inwards,” Mr. Tawnlen stated.
“Well, I guess I’m not going to be doing that with a baseball bat, unless I rammed it completely through his head. He tempted me to try something like that some days.”
“And that would not match the lethal damage inflicted.”
“But how would a telekinetic do that?”
“We don’t know. That’s the problem. I’ve looked at all the records I could get ahold of regarding the bodies, and I just don’t know of a singular talent that could be used to replicate the skull damage. A telekinetic would need to be involved, but the damage is severe. The level of force required to break through the skull as was done in this killing is phenomenal. It resembles a gunshot wound without an entry hole.”
“So why are they giving Mickey a hard time, then?”
“I’m a convenient scapegoat,” Mickey said with a shrug. “They don’t have anything solid, and they need someone to blame. I was the only librarian in visual range of the senator when he died.”
“But you’re a librarian,” I muttered.
“So are you. Don’t sound so incredulous, Janette.”
“I became a librarian because nobody would believe an exsanguinator like me would become a book dragon guarding the public library stacks. I’m somewhat talented at faking being a librarian. Honestly, I feel I should officially become a book dragon guarding the public library stacks now that everyone knows I’m an exsanguinator. Being a guardian book dragon is usually a hell of a lot safer than the other options.” I peeked under the table at my cast and the ridiculous number of pillows I wanted to catch a nap on. “I feel my parents led me astray in my youth.”
“Janette,” my mother warned again.
“What part of that wasn’t true?” I countered.
“You do not need a hoard. You’re bad enough with those car magazines. Willamina showed me your car magazine collection, particularly your favorites, which were read to a near-death state. After we finished with your car magazine collection, she showed me your stash of car-related fiction novels, to go with your stash of spy thrillers, political intrigue novels, and general mystery books. Those were also read to a near-death state. In good news, Bradley has taken this information and has begun buying you a new library of books you can read to a near-death state, apparently to bribe his way into your favor.”
Crap. I thought I’d done a somewhat admirable job of hiding my general collection of books in the Hampton family library. “Being his bodyguard would have been a great deal more pleasant if the job involved reading,” I admitted. “I think any contract I have to deal with involving the Hampton family should include guaranteed reading time.” I considered Bradley’s mother. “Your name is Willamina?”
Bradley’s mother huffed. “I don’t know how you managed to live in my house for how many years without learning my name. I swear, you have a one-track mind.”
As I couldn’t argue with her, I shrugged.
Bradley chuckled, drawing my attention to him. “You’re something else, Janette. Still, I never would have thought to look for you in a library. I mean, you did like anything you could read, and I would usually find you with your nose in a book or a magazine if I lost track of you, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Yet I really am. When I got impressions of you at the library, I really did just about have a heart attack. A damned library, Janette?”
“I got to do something I enjoy, and I like librarians, so I got to do something I enjoy with people I like. Why is this so surprising?”
“It just is.”
Bradley’s mother cleared her throat. “You’re trying to convince her to marry you, not convince her to kill you. I love you, so I don’t want her to kill you before or after she marries you.”
“If she marries me, she can attempt to kill me for the rest of my lifespan, and I will thwart her at every turn. I also will let her use the range anytime she wants, and she can explore my book and gun collection at her whim if she’s engaged or married to me.”
I took my time thinking about that.
“She’s actually thinking about it,” Meridian blurted. “Janette, you’re really thinking about it! But which part? The attempted murders or the range? The books or the guns? It’s really bothering me that I am asking this.”
“Can it be both?” I replied. “Or everything. It’s everything. Mr. Tawnlen, can you move me back to acquisitions permanently? I get to read and research all the titles coming in. I feel my current job requirements are restrictive.”
“No,” my boss replied. “You’re the fake Head Librarian until we reopen, after which you’re technically in acquisitions only because you’re working on the renovation project and will need to acquire books to go into the new sections, but you’ll have to work with the actual acquisitions experts. You can continue to bring your cat to work with you, however.”
Oh, well. “I’m going with everything for your question, Beatrice. It’s hard to say no to books, though. And I get to keep bringing my cat to work with me.”
“It really is difficult to say no to new books,” my friend agreed. “You better write in a demand for books, paid out monthly, plus time for reading them. Men can be demanding, and if you don’t make certain they understand you need your reading time, you might not get to read a book for an
entire week.”
“That would be grounds for justifiable homicide.” I eyed Bradley. “I need reading time, Mr. Hampton.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “You can even host book parties where all you do is sit in the library and read if you want. I am a lot of things, but I’m not stupid. Most of the time. I am not stupid most of the time. Honestly? I feel I’ve been fairly stupid over the past few months, especially considering who has been involved with that bill. I tried to maintain somewhat of a friendship with Godrin, but I have been somewhat vocal about the potential damage the bill could do, so we were not on good terms.”
“Yet you were at the crime scene.”
“I was at the crime scene because I was called in and asked to assist. They wanted readings from inanimate objects.”
“But why not a reading from his body?”
“Oh, they wanted that, too, but the bill for my work is a lot cheaper than the bill for Mom’s work, and the bill for Dad’s work is terrifying.”
I regarded Bradley’s father, who maintained his silence and likely would. Bradley’s mother tended to do the talking.
Bradley’s father tended to be the kind to handle the doing.
“Your thoughts?” I asked. “And if you could explain why your work is so much more expensive, that would be possibly good information to know.”
“Willamina and I were married because we have the same general ability type. We both deal with organics, but I can also read inorganic materials much like Bradley can. Bradley does have some sensory abilities with organics, but he is restricted on its usage.”
Interesting. “Bradley?”
“I can only read living people, and I can only read them when they’re in a certain mindset.”
“What does that even mean?”
Bradley refused to look me in the eyes.
“Bradley is attuned with generally positive emotions and physical states,” his father announced. “And things associated with positive emotions and physical states.”
Oh. Oh. I covered my mouth, and I worried my face might turn red as the various possibilities occurred to me, including a heightened awareness of physical attraction.
As I’d been a frequent enough flyer of admiring his various assets, if he could read those sorts of biologics, I’d been exposed as a pervert long ago. Unable to think of a single way to ask for confirmation without telling everyone Bradley classified as my type, I leaned back in my seat and pondered the situation.
Beatrice’s eyes widened. “Oh my.”
According to the baffled expressions of everyone else at the table, Beatrice and I were the only perverts present.
“I see you two are quick to come to certain conclusions,” Bradley’s mother said, and she smirked.
“His ability does also include certain negative states, but we have been very careful to avoid registering those abilities, as it is rather destructive for him—and rarely gives the information needed for a verdict,” his father added. “My abilities are much better for that type of verdict, and I’m commonly requested to do blind verifications.”
“Blind verifications?” Mickey asked.
“A rape victim wishing for admissible evidence of her assailant can request someone with my abilities, and I can get imprints of her attacker. I can then pick the attacker out from photographs or a culprit lineup. Then someone verifies I am speaking the truth, and it becomes admissible evidence. Bradley’s abilities are not refined to that degree and are non-admissible in court, so we felt it was wise to keep them off the record. Usually, his abilities do not create any difficulties.”
Bradley’s mother smirked. “Unless you’re thinking perverted things and he happens to have skin-to-skin contact, in which you have likely been exposed as the pervert you are. But, those abilities are also very useful for certain endeavors, so you’ll find yourself rather appreciative of his skills eventually, I’m sure.”
Crap. Busted. No, worse than busted. Busted by the last person on Earth I wanted being aware I had more than my fair share of lewd thoughts about.
Breaking out into laughter, Beatrice pointed at me. “Your face, Janette.”
I could only guess my expression ranged somewhere between complete mortification and the dark depths of despair. “Thanks, Beatrice.”
“Anytime.”
“Now that we have fully embarrassed Janette, we have work to do. Jezabella, did you find anything at the original murder site?” Bradley’s mother asked.
“We found exactly nothing of use outside of identifying several hundred different places within a block someone could hide out and get a visual range of where the killing took place. Assuming, of course, a direct line-of-sight is required for the killing. They could have used drones from blocks away if video relay is sufficient.”
“Or a recording from a television broadcast,” Meridian added. “That killing was televised live on national television on three different major broadcasters.”
I straightened, lowering my hand from my mouth. “Did you just say the killing had been nationally televised?”
“Yes. It was a live broadcast, and a lot of people got to watch him die. It was pretty gruesome. We have three different recordings of the murder. I’ve watched it probably fifty times now, and I can’t see anything useful in it. Everyone in the footage is caught completely by surprise, and nobody acts suspiciously before his death. There’s only about half a minute of footage before he’s killed. There could be a clue in there, but we’d have to identify everyone in the video and learn if they have any connections to any of the political groups potentially behind the murders.”
“Do we have any information on who was in the video?” I asked.
Mickey grabbed one of the tablets littering the dining room table, tapped at the screen, and slid it to me, revealing a spreadsheet with pictures and information. “I ran all of the pictures through a search engine with image matching, and I found some possible matches. Right now, we can’t realistically approach them for questioning, but we were able to get some information online about who they might be, their general political affiliations, and why they were attending the rally.”
“How’d you do that?” I pulled the tablet closer, scrolling through the collection of people and reading their biographies. “How’d you find out why they attended the rally?”
“Social media. Most of these people are activists, and they’re vocal activists. They want people to know what they’re doing, where they’ll be, and so on. A few are unknowns, and it’s impossible to tell if they happen to live in the area without knowing their identity. What I find interesting is that Senator Tomalin was killed while prominent figures of several activism groups were nearby. To add to the complication, these figures aren’t all necessarily against the bill. What I don’t understand is why Tomalin was attending a rally that is very much against what his bill hopes to do.”
I could think of a few reasons, but as Beatrice followed politics a lot closer than I did, I shoved the tablet her direction and asked, “What do you think?”
“I think someone very carefully staged his death to create as many suspects as possible to make investigating his death difficult at best. I also have no idea why anyone would think we have a better chance of solving this than the police do. If they can’t figure it out, how can we?”
I wondered, too.
“It’s like I told you before,” Bradley began, heaving a sigh and reaching across the table, snagging the tablet. “I don’t think the police or other branches of law enforcement want the murder to be solved yet. I think they want to pin the murders on someone so this bill dies along with the politicians responsible for it. I think they understand exactly what the bill does, and as long as it has any chance of passing, they don’t want the killers found. That means pinning it on someone else. If the police play their cards right, the person who becomes the scapegoat will be found innocent after the bill dies. That’s assuming it dies. In their shoes, if that is what they want to accomplish, the
y will avoid closing the case until after the bill’s death. It’s a fine line to walk.”
“Why target Mickey?” I asked, gesturing to my co-worker. “Any look into his history and his phobia, and it’s obvious he’s incapable of committing the crime. If he’s investigated and arrested for the killing, and they don’t go through due process for the trial, it’s going to bite the police in the ass.”
Bradley’s smile chilled me. “That leads me to believe they think the killer is going to finish his foul work sooner than later. There are only four politicians who helped sponsor the bill left. The killers have demonstrated that they’re able to strike as they see fit. Their choice to stagger the first few killings makes me wonder, but targeting Mickey as the scapegoat, who obviously couldn’t have committed the crime, leads me to believe that the investigators think the bill will either die or the sponsors of the bill will die before the trial can go through. And innocent until proven guilty applies—and they don’t think Mickey really did it, either. If they did, he’d be behind bars awaiting trial.”
I frowned, considering Mickey through narrowed eyes. “Why aren’t you behind bars, anyway?”
“Maybe because I would pass out every time they tried to even show me a picture of the senator? I just got told I wasn’t cleared from being a suspect and to be accessible for questioning—and possibly for trial.”
I feared the investigation would give me a migraine to go with my throbbing foot. “Mom?”
“Ah, yes. I recognize that plaintive whine. You’re tired, you’re cranky, and you don’t want to deal with what you need to deal with, so you would like me to feed you.”
Damn. My mother was out for my blood right along with my pride and dignity. As protesting would only encourage her, I replied, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Just don’t crawl under the table to have a nap on your pillows. I caught you thinking about it. If you need somewhere to start, profile the murdered senators and figure out what they all have in common outside of that bill, if anything. And then do the same about the ones who haven’t been killed yet. I’ll feed you, but if you don’t do something productive, you’ll guilt eat on top of anxiety eat, and I think we’ve had enough guilt and anxiety in this household for one day.” My mother rose from her seat, circled the table, and kissed my forehead. “Try to behave for the two hours it’ll take me to feed you.”
