Spell Blind

by DAVID B. COE

  By the time the lights came on again, I had been cuffed, and a guy was standing over me with his foot resting on my back and his shotgun aimed at the nape of my neck.

  Another cop squatted down next to my head. He was a big guy, mid-forties maybe. Sandy hair. I didn’t recognize him. He was in plain clothes, but he had on a dark blue windbreaker. I’d seen jackets like that before—I was pretty sure it had “PPD NARCOTICS” stenciled on the back.

  “What’s your name, buddy?”

  “Jay Fearsson,” I said. “I’m a PI. My license is in my wallet.”

  “Fearsson?”

  “Yeah. I used to be on the job.”

  I saw him nod, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to take off my cuffs and invite me out for coffee and doughnuts.

  “That your car out front?” he asked. “The 280Z?”

  “Yeah, that’s mine.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Maybe fifteen minutes. I found the door unlocked.”

  “So you just thought you’d let yourself in.”

  “At this time of night, I thought something might be wrong, so yeah, I walked in. Listen, can you at least help me up. Carrying on a conversation with my face on the floor isn’t as much fun as you might think.”

  The cop glanced up at the guy standing over me and nodded. A moment later, I was hoisted to my feet.

  The cop I’d been talking to began to inform me of my Miranda rights.

  I cut him off. “I understand my rights,” I said. “I’ll answer any questions you have.”

  “You’re waiving your right to have an attorney present at questioning?”

  “Yes, I am. Ask your questions.”

  The two cops exchanged glances.

  “How do you know the kid?” the cop asked me, taking out a pencil and pad.

  “I remembered Robby from when I was a cop. I knew he’d been dealing for a while, and when I was hired by the Deegan family to look into Claudia Deegan’s death, I came to him, to find out if he sold Claudia her stuff. They were an item for a while.”

  “Sommer and Deegan?” the cop said.

  I nodded.

  “How’d he die?”

  “I have no idea. He was dead when I found him.”

  “Can you account for your whereabouts tonight?”

  “I was at Robo’s from about eight to ten. I dropped off my date at ten-thirty and drove to the Maryvale eight-thirteen to see a friend. Turned out there’d been an accident at his place and he was hurt. So I called 911 and waited with him until the ambulance arrived. Then I came here.”

  “Busy night,” the cop said.

  “Busier than I would have liked.”

  “What’s your date’s name?”

  “Billie Castle. She’s a political blogger. Maybe you’ve heard of her.”

  He ignored that. “And the hurt friend?”

  “Orestes Quinley.”

  That got his attention. “Quinley?”

  “Q and I have been friends for a long time. I’m the only cop who’s ever arrested him and gotten the charges to stick.”

  The cop grinned. “And that’s the basis of your friendship?”

  “When I was still on the job, he helped me out a few times. I still go to him for information.”

  “All right, Fearsson. You know we have to take you in, right? I mean, the kid’s dead, you’re in the house, you’re carrying a weapon.”

  “I understand.” He nodded to the other cop again and started to walk away.

  “Tell me something,” I said, stopping him. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We’ve been watching Sommer for a while now—several months. Like you say, he’s been dealing for a long time.”

  “Yeah, but why bust in on him tonight?”

  “We got a call, a tip. Said there was a big deal going on here tonight.”

  “When did the call come in?”

  “Maybe an hour ago.”

  “What time is it now?”

  He squinted at his watch. “A little bit after one.”

  An hour ago. Red must have made the call moments after killing Robby. He might even have made the call from here, maybe after retrieving his red stone. Had he taken one from ’Toine’s place, too? Was that why he’d torn it apart? Regardless of the rest, I was sure that he’d set me up. Was I being that predictable?

  “Thanks,” I said. “Listen, can you do me a favor?”

  The cop frowned.

  “It’s nothing big,” I told him. “Just give a call to Kona Shaw in Homicide. Tell her I’ve been arrested, and where, and under what circumstances. She’ll do the rest.”

  His expression remained sour and for a moment I thought he might say no. But I was an ex-cop, and that still counted for something. And I don’t think he believed I’d killed Robby. He was covering all the bases by having me taken in. I would have done the same in his position.

  “Sure,” he said. He even pulled out his pad and pencil again. “Kona Shaw, you say?”

  “She was my partner.”

  He wrote it down, then nodded to me. “I’ll make the call.”

  “Thanks.”

  He walked toward the back of the house, then stopped again. “You touch anything?” he asked.

  “I kicked in a couple of doors down the hallway, thinking I might find someone here. Other than that, no.”

  The other cop led me outside and put me in a squad car. A crowd of people had gathered outside Robby’s house, and I could feel their stares as I sat in the cruiser, waiting to be driven to central processing. Even knowing that I’d done nothing wrong, I couldn’t help but feel humiliated. A couple of people yelled things at me, but I tried not to listen. I kept my head down, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. It occurred to me then that every cop should be put through this at least once, so that they could know how it feels to be on the other side.

  When two of the cops finally got in the front of the car and we pulled away from the curb, I leaned back and closed my eyes, glad to be putting some distance between myself and the crowd. I never thought I’d be so pleased to be on my way to jail.

  CHAPTER 18

  True to his word, the cop from narcotics called Kona. And she did the rest, just as I’d known she would.

  In this case, doing the rest meant placing a call to Mateo Fuentes, in the public defender’s office. Mateo had been working in the P.D. office for several years now, and I can tell you as a former cop that I hated it when Mateo worked one of my cases. The guy was tenacious, brilliant, articulate, and sneaky as hell. In other words, he was the perfect trial lawyer. He could have made a mint in private practice, but he never went that route. Don’t get me wrong: public defenders are, as a rule, good people and they tend to be good lawyers—competent if not spectacular. But generally speaking, the shining stars in the P.D. office can find better jobs with the D.A. or in private practice. Public defense is crap work. At least half the time the lawyers there find themselves defending people they know or suspect are guilty. The pay is low compared with what most lawyers make, and the hours are nothing special.

  Most guys with Mateo’s talent would have been out of there years ago. But Mateo was a believer. He felt that he owed something to the community, and he was convinced that poor Latinos often didn’t get a fair shake from the legal system. Hell, I couldn’t argue the point. So he pulled in a modest salary, he drove a Ford compact instead of a BMW sedan, and he fought for the legal rights of the folks in his community.

  Despite the fact that he had shredded me in court a couple of times, and had managed to spring at least two guys who I know to this day were guilty, I liked Mateo a lot. And seeing as I was now in jail, I wanted him in my corner.

  He was there at the door to my holding cell at seven a.m. sharp, his suit rumpled, but a great big smile on his face.

  “Fearsson,” he said. “Got yourself in a mess, didn’t you?”

  It’s testament to how tired I was that I’d been lying on a stainless steel pallet
and he still woke me from a sound sleep.

  “Hey, Mateo,” I said. “Still eating tamales, I see.”

  Mateo was a big guy. Not tall, mind you. Just big. The buttons on his dress shirts always seemed to be straining to the breaking point, and he walked with a bit of a waddle. I would have guessed that he was only a couple of years older than me—maybe in his mid-thirties—but I already worried that one of these days he was going to drop dead of a heart attack.

  “Not true,” he said, as the guard unlocked the door to my cell. “My wife has me on one of these no-fat, no-carb, no-protein diets.”

  I laughed and frowned at the same time. “It can’t be all of those. That leaves nothing, but water.”

  He shrugged and made a face. “That’s how it seems most of the time. Grab your coat. You’re outta here.”

  I sat up, wincing as I did. My entire body hurt, though whether from the attack at Robo’s or from sleeping on a metal bed I couldn’t say for certain. “You posted my bond?”

  “No bond. No evidence, no real cause, no case. No more jail.”

  I stood and grabbed my coat. “Really?”

  “Yeah.” We started walking. “I said something about the Constitution and they got all panicky. Decided they’d be better off letting you go.”

  “Mateo—”

  He stopped, turned to face me. “The only charge that had any legs at all was aggravated burglary. You went into the dead guy’s house, and you were carrying a weapon. Given that you knew the guy, given that you found the door unlocked at that hour, given that Kona was willing to vouch for you, it took me about ten seconds to get that reduced to trespassing, at which point they decided you really weren’t worth their time.”

  I patted his shoulder. “You’re a good man.”

  We walked on, following the corridor toward the front of the building.

  “You’re not supposed to use the P.D.’s office for stuff like this, Jay,” he said. “I sprung you for old-time’s sake, and because it was Kona who called me. But I have more important cases to deal with, and the office is pretty strapped right now.”

  “How about I pay you for your time then? Or rather,” I said, knowing what he’d say to that, “how about if I pay the office?”

  “You’ve got your own business now, don’t you? Private investigations?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How about you do some pro bono work for us? I don’t have anything in mind right now. But in the future.”

  I stopped again and held out my hand. “Anytime,” I said. “And every time. You understand?”

  He shook my hand and grinned. “In that case, you can get your ass hauled off to jail whenever you like.”

  The jail seemed pretty well lit, but when I stepped outside, I had to shield my eyes from the sun and squint until they were almost closed. I remember as a kid visiting the mountains north of Flagstaff after a winter storm, and the sun on the fresh snow was the same way: so bright that it hurt. The only difference was, on this day it already had to be ninety degrees. I couldn’t remember another spring as hot as this one.

  When my eyes finally began to adjust, I saw Kona standing across the parking lot with her back to the building. She was talking to someone, and I started toward her.

  “I’m parked over here,” Mateo said, gesturing toward one of the side streets. He held out his hand again. “Stay out of trouble, all right?”

  I shook his hand and grinned. “Thanks again, Mateo. I owe you.”

  “Buy me dinner, then. Just me, don’t invite my wife. I want to be able to eat something.”

  “You got it.”

  I started walking toward Kona, knowing that I owed her, too. When I was about halfway to her, she turned to face me, and I saw that she was talking to Billie. I slowed.

  Kona laughed at my expression. What choice did I have? I walked the rest of the way to them.

  “Hey, partner,” Kona said, still laughing. “I called Billie for you.”

  “I see that.”

  “I figured you’d need a ride back to your car, and believe it or not, I have more important things to do with my day.”

  “And Ms. Castle doesn’t?”

  Billie smiled; she was enjoying this. Who knew that giving me a hard time had become too big a job for one person?

  “Sounds like you had a long night,” Kona said a moment later, her expression growing serious.

  “Even more than you know.”

  “Billie told me about the club. And I heard that you called the ambulance to Q’s place. Plus Robby. That about cover it?”

  “Not quite.”

  Kona’s eyebrows went up. “Tell me.”

  “We off the record? I don’t need any more trouble with the PPD today.”

  She hesitated, then nodded.

  “You working another homicide from Mountain View? In the 733?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, now that you mention it. Antoine Mirdoux, right?” She pronounced his last name like “Murduchs”.

  “Actually, it’s Mirdoux,” I said, using the French pronunciation. “Antoine was Creole.”

  She nodded. “Should have known that.”

  “Anyway, I made the 911 call from his place.”

  “What were you doin’ there?”

  “I talked to Antoine a few days ago, same day I went to see Orestes. Q thought he had some connection to our guy. Turns out he was right. The guy who killed Robby also killed Antoine, and nearly took out Q.”

  “Robby died of an overdose.”

  I shook my head. “No, he didn’t. There was . . .” My eyes flicked toward Billie. “I saw that color on him, too.”

  “Damn it,” she said. “So, you’re telling me I now have three murders that I have to explain to Hibbard and Arroyo?”

  “Afraid so. What’s happening on your end?”

  “Not a whole lot,” she said. “I did learn a bit more about Shari Bettancourt.”

  “Let me guess. She did some kind of community or charity work. Something that involved working with troubled kids.”

  Kona’s jaw dropped. “How the hell did you know that? She’d been working at the free drug clinic in South Mountain for five years.”

  I nodded. “That figures.”

  “How?”

  “I think that Antoine and Shari, and even Robby Sommer, have been helping our guy pick his targets. Or maybe he’s been watching them for potential victims. But it’s no coincidence that they’re all dead.”

  “Damn. You’ve learned more in five days that we did in the last three years.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, don’t get all happy just yet. If he’s killing them off, that might mean that he doesn’t need them anymore.”

  “You mean he might be done killing?”

  I shook my head. “I doubt that. But I think he’s been trying to . . .” I broke off, eyeing Billie once more. “I think he’s had a specific purpose in mind all along, and if he doesn’t need them anymore, that might mean he’s succeeded. And that can’t be good.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “We have to find this guy, Kona.”

  “Sounds like you’re well on your way to doing that.”

  “Yeah, if he doesn’t kill me first. He nearly had me last night. I’m lucky I’m not lying in the OME with Robby and Antoine.”

  “How’d you fight him off?” Kona asked.

  “I had help.”

  That took her a minute. Her eyes lit up. “You mean . . . ? He helped you?”

  “First time for everything, right? He’s taking this seriously.”

  Kona exhaled through pursed lips. “I guess.”

  “Hey!” I said, alarm bells going off in my head. I looked from Billie to Kona. “Did you make sure you were off the record before you started talking to her?”

  Before Kona could answer, Billie scowled at me. “That’s not fair, Fearsson!”

  “No, it’s not,” Kona added. “She told me we were off the record.”

  I winced, then rubb
ed a hand over my brow. “I’m sorry, Billie. I had a long night.”

  Her expression didn’t change, but after a few seconds she nodded.

  Kona took my arm and led me a few steps away from Billie. “Listen,” she said. “Along those lines, she was asking me some questions while we were waiting for you.”

  “What kind of questions?”

  “She wanted to know if you’d ever spoken to me about magic.”

  Not surprising. “What did you tell her?”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure what to say. So I told her that you had, but that you were subject to occasional psychotic episodes, and you’d probably have forgotten all about it by now.”

  I stared at her. After a minute she started to laugh, as did Billie.

  “What did you tell her, Kona?”

  “She told me that you had,” Billie said, walking over to us. “And she said that as weird as it sounded to her at first, she’d come to believe you.” She shrugged. “So I’m wondering if I shouldn’t do the same thing. I haven’t made up my mind yet, but that’s how I’m leaning.”

  “I like this one, Justis. Don’t screw it up.”

  I had to laugh. “Thanks for the advice.”

  “I gotta go,” Kona said. “You look terrible. Get some sleep, all right?”

  “Yeah, I’ll try.”

  We held each other’s gazes for a few seconds. “I’ll swing by your place after my shift ends,” she said. An old ritual tied to the phasings.

  “Thanks. See you then.”

  Kona smiled at Billie. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You, too.”

  Billie and I faced each other. After a few awkward seconds, Billie said, “She’s great.”

  I nodded. “She was a good partner. Listen, I’m sorry about what I said. I was out of line.”

  She shrugged. “You had a rough night.”

  “Not that rough. I should have known better.”

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you out of here. I know you miss being a cop, and hanging out around the city jail probably isn’t the best cure for that.”

  Smart woman.

  We started walking to Billie’s car, which was parked in a municipal lot nearby.

  “You missing work on account of me?” I asked.

  “No. I wrote something last night that I scheduled to post this afternoon. I have the day free.”