After my fight with the woman was over, the footage cut away to an earlier scene, when I had first walked out of the high stakes area, leaving Eugene behind. I stopped it when it showed me getting drinks from the waitress. I could not bear to watch that part again. Wallowing in my lapse would not help me find the Meta who shot Eugene.
I opened a web browser, and logged onto a web-based email system. It took me a little while, but I figured out how to attach a copy of the casino footage to an email and email it to myself.
Sweet! I had achieved the computer literacy of a monkey. Good for me.
It seemed a very small accomplishment in light of my recent failures.
CHAPTER 16
“You really don’t have to come with me,” I said to Shadow. “This was my fault, not yours.”
“Eugene was my client too,” Shadow said. She shrugged. “Since I took his money, I have a responsibility to come with you. You have to take the bad with the good.”
We had just parked outside Eugene’s house. Eugene’s wife—no, widow—Gloria had come back into town to deal with her husband’s affairs. With Eugene’s death, it seemed she and her daughter were no longer in danger from the Felonious Five. I had made an appointment with Gloria to pay my respects and express my regrets. It seemed the least I could do. Shadow insisted on coming with me.
We got out of the car. We walked up to the front door of the big house. I rang the doorbell. After a minute or so, the door opened. It was the Poindexters’ next-door neighbor and family friend Donna. I had met her before while protecting Eugene. She was a tall older woman with dark curly hair that was lightly streaked with grey.
“Hi Donna. We met once before. This is my friend Shadow. I have an appointment to speak with Mrs. Poindexter,” I said. Donna did not respond. She merely looked at me hard behind her round, thick glasses. If looks could kill, I would have been struck dead right there on the front porch. After a few seconds, Donna let out a loud, disgusted sniff. She turned around and moved down the front hallway deeper into the house. Since she left the front door open, she clearly intended us to follow her despite her unwelcoming attitude. I glanced at Shadow.
“What were you expecting? For them to roll out the red carpet?” she murmured. She brushed past me to follow Donna. I sighed, and followed as well. This was not going to be fun.
Donna led us into the house’s large living room. Photos of Eugene, Gloria, Sabrina, and extended family members were dotted around the room. The atmosphere of the house was different than the last time I had been here with Eugene. The last time I had been here, despite the fact Gloria and her daughter had been out of town, the house felt like a home—warm, lived-in, and loving. Now though, the house seemed cold and barren, like a fire that had been snuffed out. I knew it was my imagination, but it seemed like the people in the pictures looked at me with silent rebuke.
Gloria was standing by the empty fireplace. She stared with vacant eyes out of the nearby window into the backyard. She turned to face us when we entered the room. She was shorter than average, and slim but strong looking in the way women who worked out regularly often looked. She had short blonde hair and brown eyes. I suspected that in better times, Gloria would be quite pretty. The way she looked in the pictures in the room confirmed that idea. But right now, her face just looked drawn, pale, and lifeless. Her eyes were not lifeless though. They flashed in anger when they saw Shadow and me.
“Mrs. Poindexter, I’m Truman Lord. This is my friend and colleague Shadow,” I said.
“Gloria, do you want me to leave you all alone for a few minutes?” Donna asked.
“No,” Gloria said. Her strong sounding voice was at odds with how tired she looked. “They won’t be here long.” Donna leaned against the wall. She folded her arms and stared daggers at me. No one invited me to sit down. I did not ask to.
I cleared my throat. God I hated this.
“Mrs. Poindexter, Shadow and I just wanted to come by and express to you personally how badly we feel about your husband,” I said. “We are very sorry for your loss. If there is anything we can do for you, please let us know.” Shadow nodded in agreement.
“Haven’t you done enough, Mr. Lord?” Gloria said. Her voice caught. She paused. She looked like she was willing herself to not cry. I knew how she felt. “The police tell me you left my husband alone, and that he was killed while you were gone. If you had done your job, he would still be alive.”
“Truman did all he could,” Shadow interjected. I wished she had not.
“Did he really?” Gloria said, her voice rising a bit. “If he had, he never would have left my husband alone for a second, knowing a Metahuman killer was after him.” Gloria paused. She was starting to cry. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks slowly. “You know, Eugene always said that Sabrina and I saved him, that we changed his life for the better when he met us. That if he had continued to be a supervillain, he would have wound up getting himself killed by another supervillain, or maybe even a Hero.”
Gloria’s tear-filled eyes bore into mine.
“Turns out that even though Eugene turned his life around, he still wound up getting killed by Metahumans. By not just a supervillain, but also by a Hero. Mr. Lord, you are as much to blame for my husband’s death as that other Meta is. More, actually. She was not hired to protect him. You were. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a murderer too. The only reason why I agreed to meet with you was to tell you so to your face.”
My face felt hot. I did not know what to say. What was there to say?
“I swear to you, I will do everything I can to find the Meta who killed your husband,” I said.
“As will I,” Shadow said.
Gloria shook her head vigorously.
“No. It’s too little, too late. I don’t want you doing anything. You’ve already proven yourself to be incompetent. Let the police handle it. You stay out of it,” she said. “Now, get the hell out of my house.” Despite the tears streaming down her face, she looked like she wanted to physically throw me out. I felt so badly, I wanted to let her.
There did not seem to be anything else to say. So I did not. Shadow and I turned around and left the room. The walls of the house felt like they were closing in around me until I got back to the front porch. I closed the front door behind me. I let out a long breath. It made my injured ribs ache. I very badly wanted a drink. In silence, Shadow and I climbed back into my car. I drove away. We did not speak for quite a while.
I had felt low before I saw Mrs. Poindexter. I felt lower now.
Finally, Shadow broke our silence.
“Is this what being a Hero feels like?” Shadow asked.
“Not always. But, sometimes,” I said.
“It sucks. I don’t know how you stand it.”
“Me neither.”
We were quiet again.
“Are we going to do what Mrs. Poindexter asked?” Shadow asked. “Are we going to just leave finding that Meta up to the police?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Good.”
CHAPTER 17
A few days after meeting with Gloria Poindexter, I sat in my office. I was waiting to hear back regarding some feelers I had put out into both the Hero and larger Metahuman community regarding who the woman who killed Eugene was, and where I might find her. Shadow had put out some feelers to her contacts as well. Unfortunately, the Metahuman killer had not presented herself at my office to turn herself in. While it would have been nice, I did not expect her to. Supervillains could be most uncooperative. On the upside, my doctor had cleared me to take off my eyepatch. I no longer looked like a pirate who had been mugged. Now I just looked like someone who had been mugged. Progress.
While I waited to hear back from someone, I alternating between feeling sorry for myself, sorrier for Eugene, wanting a drink, and trying to not think about circumcision. When I had driven to the office that morning, there had been a segment on the radio discussing the health merits and demerits of male circumcision. Unfortunatel
y, I could not get thoughts of it out of my head; I did not have any idea how to locate the Metahuman killer, and nature abhors a vacuum. Get circumcision out of my head: there was an obvious penis pun there somewhere. I tried to avoid thinking about it. I always tried to not pick the low-hanging fruit. The low hanging fruit: there was a testicles pun in there, too. But, I was too dignified to go into the bush to chase after it.
I shook my head, trying to rid it of thoughts of puns and circumcision. I tried to focus exclusively on the Metahuman who killed Eugene. But often, the harder you tried to not think of something, the more you thought about that something. Thoughts about foreskins danced at the edge of my consciousness as I tried to grab them and get rid of them. Foreskins were hard to pin down. Unless you were a mohel.
I was mentally hip deep in foreskins when my office door opened. A Metahuman walked in. Unfortunately, it was not the woman who had killed Eugene. Darn her stubborn hide. Rather, it was a Metahuman who looked like Darth Vader.
No, it was not actually Darth Vader. If it had been, I would have thought I was drinking again. Darth Vader was merely a fictional character. I still had not had a drink since I had started working for Eugene. The man in my office was no movie character. He was as real as a heart attack. His presence in my office nearly gave me one.
Despite the man not being Darth Vader, he still reminded me of him. It was not the color of his costume, because Darth’s was black and this man’s was off-white. And though, like Darth, this man’s costume and long flowing cape covered him from head to toe, he did not wear a helmet like Darth did. Rather, this man wore a tight mask that completely covered his head, with no holes for his eyes, nose, or mouth. I had no idea how he managed to breathe. Maybe he did not need to. Carbon dioxide was probably too scared of him to try to suffocate him.
The man was tall and imposing, just the kind of man you would expect to see in a position of authority and responsibility. Also like Darth Vader, an air of menace surrounded the man like a cloak. I did not pull out the gun in my desk, though. I recognized him. I knew I was in no danger. No physical danger, at least. The threat this man posed to me was real enough though.
Without asking, the man swept into my office with his cape billowing out behind him. He sat down in one of my client chairs directly in front of me. He was careful to drape his long cape over the back of the chair so he would not sit on it. Though I could not see his eyes, I could feel the man looking at me appraisingly. It was unnerving.
“I find myself thinking about circumcisions,” I blurted out. “Since you are here, I’ll start a poll. Uh, no pun intended. To use a euphemism, are you a sock-puppet Sam or a no-hood Ned?”
“What?” Even muffled by his mask, the man’s deep voice was resonant.
I shook my head at myself.
“Never mind. I make jokes sometimes. It gets worse when I’m nervous. I’m nervous now. Are you?”
“No,” the man said. The area of his mask around his mouth crinkled a bit, as if he was smiling underneath it. “Since you are nervous, Mr. Lord, I take it you know who I am.”
“Sure. You’re Ghost, the chief investigator of the Heroes’ Guild. I saw you at my Hero swearing-in ceremony. No offense, but I had hoped to never see you again.”
“None taken. Unfortunately, I am rarely the bearer of good news. Yes, I was at your swearing-in. I make it a point to go to the swearing-in ceremony of each class of new Heroes after they pass the Trials,” he said. At his words, something clicked in my mind. I suddenly realized why the Metahuman who killed Eugene seemed so familiar. I got excited. I shoved the thought aside for the moment as Ghost was still talking.
“Do you know why I’m here?” he asked.
“I’m not quite sure,” I said. That was not at all true. There was only one reason why Ghost paid a visit on a licensed Hero: namely, someone had filed a formal complaint against the Hero with the Heroes’ Guild. “Since you look a bit like Darth Vader dipped in bleach, could it be you heard about the Star Wars fan fiction I’m writing? It’s inspired by the movie The Sixth Sense. In my book, Luke and his friends fight against Darth and the Galactic Empire. The plot twist is it turns out Darth Vader was dead the whole time. The title is the best part. I call it The Sith Sense.”
The fabric around Ghost’s mouth twitched again.
“No, oddly enough, that is not why I am here,” he said.
“Could it be you are hot on the heels of a supervillain and you stopped by to get some crimebuster tips?” I said hopefully.
“No,” Ghost said. “Gloria Poindexter, the widow of your former client Eugene Poindexter, has lodged a complaint with the Heroes’ Guild regarding your conduct as his bodyguard. It is her belief your alleged negligent conduct led to her husband’s death. After looking into the matter preliminarily, I believe there to be sufficient evidence to open a case against you and conduct a thorough, formal investigation. I am here as a courtesy to inform you. I make it a point to visit a Hero when I start a formal investigation of him.”
“Ah,” I said. “That was going to be my third guess as to why you are here.”
Ghost shifted in his seat, leaning forward toward me slightly.
“Mr. Lord, you have a reputation for jocularity,” he said. I was tempted to interject and say I did not know what jocularity meant, but it would have been both untrue and inappropriate. I normally could not control my jocular impulses, but continuing to make jokes in front of Ghost seemed incredibly stupid. Even a blind squirrel stumbled upon a nut every now and then. “And, I see your reputation is warranted. The Guild opening a case against you is a serious matter, however. Because of our abilities, Heroes have the power over life and death in our hands. The Guild views Heroes being allowed by society to use our powers responsibly and for the public weal as a sacred trust. Both the Guild and I take that trust very seriously. You should too.” Ghost paused to let that sink in. Similar sentiments had been pounded into my head when I was training for the Trials. I had never forgotten them despite the lighthearted air I often assumed.
“Based on our preliminary fact-finding of what happened at the Golden Horseshoe Casino including reviewing the surveillance footage, we are investigating you for negligence, dereliction of your Heroic duties, assault and battery of a non-Metahuman, reckless endangerment of the public, and engaging in conduct unbecoming a licensed Hero,” Ghost said.
“Is that all? You left out jaywalking,” I said. I knew this was a serious matter. Sometimes I simply just could not help myself.
Ghost’s mask twitched again.
“Yes, that is all,” he said. Despite the smile which might have been under the mask, Ghost’s voice was as serious as dagger to the heart. “For now, at least. Our investigation may uncover other charges. The results of the investigation and my own personal recommendation will be forwarded to the Heroes’ Guild’s seven member Executive Committee for a vote on what your punishment should be, if any. Punishment can range from a private reprimand, to a public reprimand, to temporary suspension of your Hero’s license, or, the most severe of all our punishments, to permanent defrocking. If defrocked, you will be forever barred from being a Hero and prohibited from using your powers.”
Well, there is was. For once, I did not have anything to say. I had worked incredibly hard and had made numerous sacrifices to become a licensed Hero. Being a Hero was an integral part of who I was. If I could not be a Hero, what the hell was I? Just an ex-fighter with a battered face and goofy jokes.
“As I said, I wanted to do you the professional courtesy of informing you of the Guild’s investigation face to face. You will receive a formal copy of the charges against you via certified mail,” Ghost said. He stood, and looked down at me.
“Before I go, let me say this. I have monitored your career with great interest since you were licensed. Though you have been a somewhat unconventional Hero and your methods and approach have tended to be unorthodox, from what I can tell your heart has been in the right place. You have brought credit to you
r cape.” The fabric around Ghost’s mouth crinkled again. “Since you do not wear a cape, I of course speak metaphorically. But, these charges are serious. Though it will give me no pleasure to do so, I will recommend your punishment to the Executive Committee if I determine what you have done warrants punishment based on the results of the investigation. We will expect your full cooperation during the investigation.”
I stood too. Even if a joke had occurred to me, I don’t think I would have said it.
“You will have my full cooperation,” I said. I extended my hand over my desk. Ghost took it, and we shook hands. Though Ghost making an appearance was like seeing the angel of professional death, he had a reputation for conducting his investigations fairly and impartially. I respected him. He scared me a little too, and not just because my professional life was in his hands. Though no one knew how old he was, Ghost had investigated generations of Heroes. He was a Heroes’ Guild icon. An aura of implacability surrounded him, like he was a force of nature that would sweep away anything that stood in his way. And, though I did not know exactly what his superpowers were, they were reputed to be formidable and on the higher end of the Metahuman power scale.
Superhero Detective Series (Book 3): Killshot Page 13
