“What’s the situation now?”
“We’ve got it under control, but we need you and Alaia out there together on this one.”
“That’s not where the story is right now, DeAnte’,” Phoenix said, as the elevator opened onto the first floor. “I have a lead – and it’s at St. David’s University. Get one of the Berry Hill guys to cover for me. And have Jenkins meet me at St. David’s in the Granny White parking lot near the steam plant. We need answers. You’ll only find bodies at Tusculum. Trust me on this.”
A pause, a couple of seconds, seemed to never end. Then Chief Cobb said, “What’s at St. David’s?”
“I stole the syringe and the lab reports from Dr. Demachi’s desk. I’m taking them to Dr. Marcus Cain. Seems like he’s the guy who knows Psyke, or maybe I’m wrong.”
“That’s a felony, Phoenix,” Chief Cobb said. “And now that I know that, I have to arrest---”
“But it’s not a felony, DeAnte’,” Phoenix cut in. “Not when I have a tip – besides, I’m being set up. Tracy is proof of that.”
“Just keep me in the loop,” Chief Cobb said. “And we didn’t discuss any of this. Nobody knows we talked.”
Chapter 6
Walking with his hand in his pocket, his fingers wrapped lightly around the evidence bag containing the syringe, Phoenix, with his eyes staring straight ahead, walked back up West End towards the parking lot.
He arrived at the corner of West End and 25th Ave South a few minutes later. He checked his watch, pulled out an extra three dollars, and dropped them into the pay slot matching the number of his parking space. He hurried off across the lot, careful to avoid an entering vehicle, and got into his vapor silver Ford Focus.
He started his car, fastened his seatbelt, and pulled out his phone. He called Alaia, though it took him nothing less than a shear act of iron will to even hit her number.
“Now what?” Alaia asked.
“Everything you’ve been hoping for and more, dear,” Phoenix said. “You want my job? You can have it – I’m quitting. But not just yet.”
“Glad to see you’ve come to your senses.”
“No time for small talk from small people,” Phoenix said. “I need you to meet me at---”
“Are you ordering me?”
“Never in a million years. I need a blood sample from Albin Demachi – get it as fast as you can and meet me at---”
“At St. David’s in the Granny White parking lot,” Alaia said. “I got it from Cobb a second ago.”
“Be there in thirty,” Phoenix said, and he ended the call.
He sped onto West End heading west for 1-40, arriving in the parking lot at St. David’s forty minutes later. Alaia had already arrived, parking her car near the steam plant, lucky to have gotten a space that close. She saw Phoenix pull into the lot, and she stepped out of her car with a spiteful smirk pasted across her face. Phoenix parked at the other end of the lot near the old St. David’s log house and got out. They both met at the steam plant and walked to the Lutrell Health Sciences Building
“Call Dr. Cain,” Phoenix said.
“Got it done already,” Alaia said. “He’s meeting us in his office over at the Lutrell Building.”
“The files, you brought them?”
“In the trunk.”
“You’d never guess it,” Phoenix said, as he looked around the campus, nodding his head. “This place used to be a Bible college. My dad was the last man to graduate from the Bible Philosophy program. And they made a big deal out of it. Kinda like a ribbon cutting, only they were putting the ribbon back up.”
“You said on the phone you were quitting? Why would you do that? I’m having fun making you look bad.”
“I say a lot of things.”
“You know I’ll get your job – Cobb’s already offered it to me.”
Phoenix stopped dead in his tracks, like a bouncing pinball jammed in a bumper of a pinball machine.
Alaia stopped a few steps after he did and turned, her eyes firmly set on his, not blinking, not looking away, not hiding the look of glee in her eyes. “But it’s not like you think,” she said.
“What else is there to think? But it’s not a big deal, Alaia. I’m leaving – but not quite yet.”
“I need the raise, Phoenix,” Alaia said. “Not for me. For my son.”
“Oh?”
“And I’ll do anything I have to do to get it – except sleep with Cobb. And I ain’t doing that!”
Phoenix paused, took a deep breath, and let it out. He got close into Alaia Jenkins’ face and said, “Then you’re going to have to help me snag a fish – and you’re not going to sleep until we do, got it?”
“Understood.”
“You’ll do anything for your son, you say? Would you put a bullet in his head if you had to?”
Alaia, held for a moment by the gaze of Phoenix Malone, trembled, like something small and hurt, perhaps like a frightened mouse standing face to face with a tomcat, his paw raised, claws spread, and ready to strike. She looked away as a tear formed in the corner of her dark, brown eyes, but she brushed it off, composed herself, and came back to him again.
“I know … I know you loved your wife,” she said. “And I’m sorry I’ve been all business. But my boy is a twin, Phoenix. A twin without a sister. We’ve all lost somebody – your wife to something we haven’t figured out yet, my daughter to a … so, I’m sorry. I get it. I really do.”
Her response surprised him, pleasantly, and he thought he felt himself stepping backwards. It seemed like all of that malice of hers – maybe malice was too strong a word – had just floated to the top of her molten metal, like the impurities in a gold refining operation did. He watched her fold her hands together and place them under her chin, prayer like, or maybe she was struggling to keep her eyes on Phoenix. No matter. Maybe he could work with her, maybe not. But to Phoenix, Alaia Jenkins suddenly looked human. And she also looked like somebody who could, if the need arose, steamroller anybody and anything stupid enough to park in front of her.
“So, what have you got so far?” Alaia asked, eager to get the program up and running.
“A bag full of Krystal’s burgers that haven’t been looked at yet,” Phoenix said. “Let’s walk. You’ve been doing some work on the missing persons’ cases, or am I wrong?”
Alaia pursed her lips and shot Phoenix a sidelong glance.
“It’s okay – I knew you’d been looking at it,” Phoenix said. “Have you looked at each person’s occupation and net worth?”
“They’re all rich,” Alaia replied. “That you know. But no ransom requests and no dead bodies – so we know we’re dealing with a single kidnapper.”
“There are over two hundred missing persons, all of them wealthy beyond our wildest dreams,” Phoenix said. “I want you to find what each of them does, or did, for a living. Then I want you to gain access to their tax records and see where their money’s going.”
“Why?” Alaia asked. “What am I looking for?”
Phoenix smiled and pulled open the door to the Lutrell Science building. “You’ll know it when you see it.”
Phoenix and Alaia went into the building and took a left. They came to a corridor, went right, and found themselves by the restrooms. On the left was a staircase. Class must have just ended, because every kid on the second floor came running down the stairwell, each one carrying a huge backpack and a laptop case. Thirty seconds later, the stairwell cleared and Phoenix led the way up.
They came Dr. Marcus Cain’s office and opened the door.
A smartly-dressed guy, late sixties maybe, wearing a nice black suit and light pink tie, rather loud for a teacher – but hey, this was college – was waiting inside for them, standing in front of his desk with his hands clasped in front of him like he was posing for a campaign photo shoot. Phoenix, nodding toward the professor, said, “This is an old friend of my father’s, Dr. Marcus Cain. Dr. Cain, meet Detective Jenkins.”
Alaia smiled and held out her
hand. “Thanks for seeing us today, Dr. Cain.”
“My pleasure,” Dr. Cain said, as he offered them a seat.
Before taking their seats on the black leather couch that looked as soft as it did pricey, Alaia looked at Phoenix and asked, with sincerity and respect in her voice, “Are you sure you want me here?”
“I need you here,” Phoenix said. “Just don’t get fresh with me.”
Dr. Marcus Cain smiled. He was a tenured professor of chemistry at St. David’s, the head of the pharmacy department and an active partner in Pharmco Pharmaceuticals, a locally-owned drug and research lab on Briley Parkway. He also had a degree in medicine, which he’d received at Vanderbilt University, with an emphasis on infectious diseases. His appointment to the pharmacy chair was a logical choice made by the university president.
“If you two will take a seat, I’ll get us some coffee,” Dr. Cain said.
“Thanks, Marcus,” Phoenix said. “But we’d love a raincheck, if that would be okay.”
“Sure,” Dr. Cain said. He sat across from them in a single black leather chair. A dark, cherry coffee table, glowing under new wax, sat between him and his two guests. “So, have you got it with you? The syringe? And the blood sample from Dr. Demachi? Exciting stuff, I hear.”
Phoenix leaned to one side and removed the evidence bag containing the syringe from his pants pocket and handed it to Dr. Cain. He pulled out Dr. Albin Demachi’s report, still in its folder, a little bent, and laid it on the coffee table.
Alaia turned her head, lifting a single eyebrow that only Phoenix could see. She’d never tamper with evidence is what that looked said. She handed Dr. Cain the blood sample taken from Albin Demachi.
“Tell me about Psyke,” Phoenix said.
Dr. Cain’s eyebrows, gray and neatly trimmed, furrowed for a split second, and then he released them. He examined the evidence bag, turning it over and over in his hands, set it down on the coffee table, and pushed his black rim glasses up closer to his eyes.
“Not just about the regular Psyke,” Phoenix said, sitting forward in his seat. “I want to know how far it goes in the victim, why it does what it does, and who the people are behind it.”
Dr. Cain paused for a second, his eyes on the syringe. He shrugged half-heartedly, raised his hand loosely with his palm up, and then pulled at his collar. “Date-rape drug, which you already know, making its debut here on St. David’s Campus oh, forty or so years ago. Old stuff – still used today.”
“You were here then,” Phoenix said, looking into his eyes without blinking.
Dr. Cain nodded. “Yes, I was.”
“Who developed it?”
“Well, that’s a question that … No,” Dr. Marcus said. He took a deep, pained breath and closed his eyes as if in prayer. The question stung him.
“It’s killing people,” Alaia said. “Not only the users, but those who come into contact with them. We need information, and the sooner the better.”
“If you’d let me finish,” Dr. Cain said. “I was about to say that I’ve made my peace with God over this years ago, and part of that peace requires that I help when I can. I never actually made Psyke, nor did I ever use it. It was all a joke at first – a couple of guys in the lab, dreaming of the perfect girl who, at the time, wasn’t interested in anyone – or so some of us thought. Her name was Mariela Diaz, from Venezuela, getting her undergrad in Bible and Medical Missions. This girl – I still remember her. Sweet, kind, long blackish brownish hair, and the most amazing green eyes. Emerald, if I’ve seen emerald.”
“And the unthinkable happened,” Phoenix said.
Dr. Cain nodded. “I was a show off back then, didn’t think there was anything I couldn’t do. You know, it took me less than an hour to formulate it, Psyke – that quick. You think I could’ve spent my time coming up with a cure for cancer.”
“But somebody made it.”
“Boy named Eric Sawyer,” Dr. Cain said, his chin trembling. “Eric Sawyer – may he burn in---”
“Where can we find him?” Alaia asked, shifting in her seat, reaching for her pen and a small note pad.
Dr. Cain put his hands over his face, hands that looked as soft and well-manicured as any Phoenix had ever seen.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Cain,” Phoenix said, as he ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean to---”
“It’s okay,” Dr. Cain replied, taking a deep breath. “Just give me a second while I get this together.”
Phoenix and Alaia, both glancing at one another, allowed Dr. Cain a moment. They looked at each other only briefly, probably less than a second or two, and then looked down at the floor. When they looked up again, Dr. Cain looked settled. A little shaken, but settled.
“Mariela was drugged and raped by Eric Sawyer,” Dr. Cain said, and he let out a long, deep sigh. “There, I said it. Didn’t think I could ever say that again.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. Then he said, “Mariela later got hold of a pistol. Where she got it, nobody ever found out – but she walked into the men’s dorm, shot Eric multiple times, and then she … then she put the gun to her chest. All of that’s public information.”
“And that was the first known use of Psyke?” Alaia asked. “I’m assuming Eric Sawyer was the one who made it.”
Dr. Cain nodded. “And to this day I regret having had anything to do with it.”
Phoenix remained silent for a few seconds, then he said: “I need you to analyze this syringe, Dr. Cain. We know there are traces of Psyke in it, but I want to know if there’s anything else in it.”
Dr. Cain’s eyes went wide and he didn’t blink. “Why would you suspect there might be anything else in it?”
“Can you check it out for me?” Phoenix asked. “I need to know.”
Dr. Cain nodded and picked up the syringe, turning it over in his hands as if it burned him. “But there’s something else about this story.”
“I’m – we’re all ears,” Phoenix said.
“At the time we didn’t know it – and I suspect Eric Sawyer never knew it, either – But Mariela was seeing a friend of mine, one of the guys in our group, Phillip Mercer. She’d been seeing him secretly a few months before she was raped by Eric. I don’t know how any of us ever missed it, but we did.”
“Where can we find Mr. Mercer?” Phoenix asked.
“Over at Green Lawn.”
“Green lawn?”
“Green Lawn Cemetery.”
Chapter 7
In St. David’s University’s library, across the parking lot from the Lutrell Science building, Phoenix went to work on the computer, looking up news articles pertaining to the death of Mariel Diaz, Eric Sawyer, and Phillip Mercer. Alaia headed to the help desk to find the yearbooks covering the graduating class of 2005 through 2009 and, when she found them, went to work in a cubicle close by.
Before Alaia had barely cracked open the first book, Phoenix walked over to where she sat and leaned over her. “I want copies, in color, of every picture you see.”
“I hope you have a credit card,” Alaia said. “It ain’t coming out of my paycheck – you got that?”
“Let me worry about it. Anything with Dr. Cain, Mariela Diaz … wait a minute, I have to get my list.”
“Eric Sawyer and Phillip Mercer?”
“Cobb could be right – you know, about you being the detail girl.”
Phoenix walked back to where he was working and settled down into his tight, gray-walled cubicle, not far from where Alaia worked. He did a search on the computer. Eric Sawyer St. David’s University Mariela Diaz. The search engine spewed out a hundred or more results in under a second, listing article after article relative to the case, including multiple photos of both students. Phoenix closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to clear his mind. He readied himself mentally and looked at the computer screen.
Eric Sawyer was a good-looking kid: vivid blue eyes streaked with white rays; knowing eyes, or maybe they were cynical – but very obviously his was the fac
e of an intellectual. Short hair, dark blonde maybe, with very little blonde left, shaved close above the ears, blending into a loose comb-over up top.
“Says here Eric Sawyer was a Bible major,” Phoenix said, leaning out from his cubicle. “Guy looks like you could take him home to meet your parents and they’d trust you in the sack with him.”
“Doesn’t mean he believed in God,” Alaia whispered with a stern look on her face. “And don’t talk so loud.”
Phoenix stared at the photo – a minute, maybe two. This guy was probably a virgin, but only his closest friends would ever know that; and that wouldn’t matter now, not today. Eric probably felt the urge – and what guy didn’t in college? – had a formula for a date-rape drug he hoped would work, and he had a girl in mind.
But he’d hate her afterwards, wouldn’t he? He’d never want to see her again, not after that; and not so much because he’d drugged her, but because he’d felt shame for what he’d done to her after he’d put her under. This guy was a Bible major – he’d feel the heat of conscience or the musings of the Holy Spirit, and he’d be forced by his own insensibilities – sensibilities? – to walk away, try to save himself and, in the process, throw the girl out to the curb.
Mariela? Pure innocence, herself a Bible and Missions major. Long, dark hair, even darker eyes, face longer than it was wide – petite. The smile of a child just stepping out into the wonder of a world she could one day help shape. A kid. Innocent. She’d never have pulled the trigger, let alone shop for a weapon.
At first, Phoenix just sat there, motionless, mesmerized by the photos. He had an eye for people. He knew what they were and weren’t capable of before they even knew it; and he’d been right far too often. He’d always said he could see it in the eyes. Paranoia, malice, anger – everything up to and including innocence. His gut told him Eric Sawyer was no monster. Neither was Mariela Diaz. They were just a couple of kids who had made horrible and devastating choices, willful choices, choices whose consequences were terminal. They had no idea that, together, because of what they did, they would change history. Phoenix breathed and shook his head.
Time Clock Hero Page 5
