Collins crossed the road and came up to them. “Okay, here’s the deal. You have ten minutes but you can’t touch anything and you can’t report anything. And,” he said, looking at Karen apologetically, “you have to stay out here, Miss Watson.”
Karen’s mouth gaped open.
“I’m sorry;” said Collins, “it’s the best I could do.”
Her mouth snapped shut. “Fine,” she said, straightening. “I’ll make some calls and see what I can find.” She slid her phone out, and it was as if a shield came up. Instead of being left out she turned the tables, and, in an odd sort of way, David felt as if he and Collins were the ones being excluded.
Collins turned and headed toward the house, and David tagged along behind. They passed under the yellow crime-scene tape and entered into the living room. Yellow cards with thick, black letters were placed around the room marking points of interest. An outline where the body had lain was at the entrance to the kitchen. Two men and a woman, probably part of the forensics unit, crouched in various spots examining evidence. Another man was searching the kitchen. What David noticed most, however, was the smell of decomposing blood which was pooled in the corner.
He covered his nose. “How do you get used to that?”
“When you’ve been to a scene with a cadaver that’s been rotting for more than three days, everything smells better,” said Collins, stiff faced.
David fought back a dry heave.
The agent stepped to the side. “All right. Do your magic.”
Magic? It was hardly magic. With magic, at least David would have some control over the outcome. He scanned the room. Someone in the house had a comic book addiction; mint-condition comics in plastic sheets were displayed on the wall near the ceiling and over the front door. There were plenty of words to choose from. Next to the door was a sign that read: A Happy Home A house is built with walls and beams. A home is build with love and dreams. On top of the television sat a religious plaque that read: Love is patient. Love is kind. Love never ends.
David watched his step and positioned himself to see all the words at once. His eyes began bouncing from one to the next. Being fairly confident that the message wasn’t, “Happy Aquaman dreams kind beams,” he gave it a second shot. Word after word strung together in his mind, but he stopped before he got to the end. There were so many pertinent words to chose from: Detective in Detective Comics; Identity, in Identity Crisis; or his favorite, Captain, in Captain Marvel. But nothing made sense. And the familiar confirmation that always accompanied the messages was absent.
He sighed. It was a waste of time to force it. If there was a message here, it would come. He needed to shake off the pressure of Agent Collins’ prying eyes (and the noxious smell of the rotting blood), and simply let events unfold as they were meant to. He walked gingerly around the room and found his way back to the front door.
“What do you see?” said Collins, more respectfully than David felt he deserved.
“Nothing, yet. I’m sorry.”
“Do you want to try another room?”
David scanned one last time, expecting the same results, but this time his eyes fell on a yellow card with the letter U in bold black. His eyes bounced to the next card with an R, and to a comic book above the door. The title said: “Close Encounters.” David’s mind grabbed the word Close.
U R Close.
“You getting something?” Collins must have noticed the expression on his face.
David gave an optimistic smile. “It says I’m close.”
“To what? The murder weapon?”
David continued to scan the room. His eyes fell on the letter B on another yellow card, then bounced to the religious plaque on top of the television, drawing the word patient.
“They’re saying, ‘Be patient.’”
A loud male voice filled the room. “What’s he doing here!”
David stumbled backward.
The voice came from a very tall, very muscular uniformed officer standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He held a clipboard in his hand, and had bright sergeant stripes above both biceps.
Collins postured. “I advise you to change your tone, Sergeant.”
“This is that nut job who says he’s getting messages from God. We’re letting terrorists into our crime scenes now?”
“Sergeant, your behavior is inappropriate. This man is authorized to be here. Stand down.”
“You don’t believe this guy, do you?! He’s a con artist.”
Collins stepped forward and faced off with the hulk of a man. “Look, Sergeant,” he leaned in and read the man’s name patch, “Gram. If you have a grievance, bring it to your captain. We’re trying to conduct an investigation here.”
The sergeant looked down at Collins, his face twisted in disgust. “You believe this nut job, don’t you? You know what, I have some advice for you, Agent. You Feds need to keep your nose out of real police work and go chase some flying saucers.” He backed away, chest out, eyes on David. “We’re not done.”
David knew better than to offer a response. It would only inflame the situation, a situation he didn’t want to be a part of in the first place.
The man turned and exited out the back of the kitchen. David’s body loosened. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re not wanted?”
“Don’t let him get under your skin. We only have a couple minutes left. Do you see anything else?”
David attempted to scan the room again, but all he could think about was the run-in with the officer—and a possible rematch outside. It felt like high school all over again, only this time the bully had the authority to throw him in jail.
“I’m sorry,” he said at last, “nothing is coming to me.”
Collins did a less-than-subtle peek out the window, no doubt searching for the belligerent sergeant and calculating their remaining time. “Let’s try the kitchen,” he said.
The kitchen was small and cluttered, with dishes stacked in the sink. A few cereal boxes sat on the table, and an open bag of bread was in front of the bread box.
David’s eyes rested on the word Wonder, emblazoned in red across the side of the package, then bounced to the cutting board and pulled the word wear from the logo, Stonewear, etched on its surface. The message formed. Wonder wear?
“Wonder where?” said David, mostly to himself.
Collins tried to see what he was seeing. “Are you getting something?”
David looked at the table. His eyes jumped from the Chex cereal box to a headline on a newspaper sitting in a bin next to a wood stove which read “Behind in the Polls” then jumped back to the word Cap’n, in Cap’n Crunch.
“Chex behind Cap’n?” he whispered.
“Check behind the captain?” said Collins, already heading toward the back door.
They found the captain standing in the garage, arguing with Sergeant Gram about David’s involvement in the Boston Bomb Scare. Judging by the captain’s tone, the sergeant was getting his way.
“Get him out of here!” said the sergeant when he saw them enter the garage. “We don’t need the assistance of terrorists.”
“Is this kind of undisciplined behavior allowed in your department, Captain?” said Collins, facing off with the sergeant again.
“Back down, Sergeant,” said the captain.
The sergeant puffed up. “They have no business...”
“Back down!” The captain’s shout reverberated off the tools hanging from the walls of the garage. The sergeant slowly moved his bulk away from Collins.
“Look,” spat the captain, “you’ve had your time, now get him out of here.”
“We need a couple more minutes, if you don’t mind.”
“I do mind,” he said.
“We have an agreement. Don’t forget why you allowed me to bring him in here in the first place.”
David didn’t think it possible, but the captain’s face grew even redder. “I know why I allowed you in here! But you’re on borrowed time, Agent. I won’t let you
undermine this investigation for a little political posturing.”
Collins took a step toward the captain. “We all want to get to the bottom of this murder. All I’m asking is for an additional minute of your time.”
“Don’t trust them, Captain,” the sergeant blurted.
The Captain raised his hand. “Not one more word out of you.”
Collins passed by the captain and examined the wall behind him. It was covered with metal tools, more than adequate to conceal a handgun from metal detectors. He tapped the paneling behind the tools. It wobbled.
David noticed the sergeant squirming as the agent examined the tool wall. “Collins?” David said under his breath, “I don’t mean to stir things up, but the sergeant seems agitated by your actions.”
Collins looked at the sergeant. “Really? Is there something you’re not telling us, Sergeant?”
His face contorted. “Don’t spin this around on me. You know why I’m agitated.”
“Are we going to find something hidden behind this paneling?”
“Why? Is that what the terrorist told you? Go ahead, rip it down.”
Collins stepped back. “Have you brought the dogs in here, Captain?”
“Not yet. Why?”
“Could we have them check this back wall and see if they smell gunpowder residue. That is, of course, if the sergeant doesn’t have a problem with that.” He looked over at the sergeant who was clearly beginning to worry about the direction the argument was taking.
“Captain, I’m not hiding anything about this case. If that gun is there, I want to find it just as much as anyone. They’re trying to paint this...”
“Go get a dog, Sergeant, and let’s start working together on this. If Agent Collins is wasting our time, we’ll give him enough rope to hang himself.”
The sergeant glared at David. “I hope it’s enough rope to hang them both.”
They all cleared out of the garage and in short order Sergeant Gram returned with a police dog and handler. His disposition had not changed. The way he was acting earlier, David would have expected more nervousness in his countenance, but all he could detect was resolve. This officer was bent on proving him to be a fraud, and David was beginning to wonder if he would succeed. He didn’t have much to go on; Chex behind Cap’n wasn’t the clearest of messages.
The K-9 officer guided his German Shepherd through the garage while the rest of the growing assembly of officers watched from the driveway, which now included a grumpy-looking Agent Cooper who had returned from searching the woods in back of the house.
“Why is Chance here?” said Cooper, discretely, to Collins but still loud enough for David to catch.
“I invited him,” said Collins, his eyes tracking the dog’s behavior.
“He’s still under investigation, last time I checked.”
“Now is not a good time, Agent Cooper,” he said, stiffening his posture.
Cooper backed off.
The officer guided the dog around the wall of the garage and stopped at the back. A command was given and the dog began to sniff around paint cans under the tool bench. He moved to a set of rakes on the side wall, then to a stack of old tires.
David watched the dog’s every movement, acutely aware that if the dog failed to detect the murder weapon, the crowd of official men standing around him would quickly become ravenous wolves. There would be no refuge from their wrath.
The dog put his paws up on the tool bench and began sniffing the top, but nothing caught his attention. He shifted his attention to a pile of junk in the far left corner.
Collins looked at David, and David looked away. When he did, his eyes landed on the name tag of the man next to him. It said, Quick. Recognizing the familiar feeling washing over him, he bounced to another name tag, a man with the last name Kitchen. Quick Kitchen?
Every eye was on the dog, so David took a slow step away from the garage. Collins snapped a look at him.
“I’ll be back here,” David said, sheepishly.
Collins’ eyes squinted, and his lips tightened. “If you make a run for it, I swear I’ll shoot you.”
“I just need air,” said David.
Collins turned back to the garage, and David bolted for the kitchen.
“Hey!” shouted Collins, giving pursuit.
David ran down the stone path behind the house, up the backstairs, through the porch, and into the kitchen. A man in a blue blazer stood frozen in the middle of the room. David’s eyes brushed for words even as the pounding of feet stomped through the porch behind him.
He looked at a magazine laying on the table; his eyes landed on the word Shirt in the headline. He bounced to the word in and finally to the word Fire in Fire Sale.
Men filed into the kitchen, and David twisted around. “THE SHIRT’S IN THE FIRE!”
Collins held his arm out. “What?”
David caught his breath. “The shirt’s in the fire. I don’t know what it means. It’s just what I know.”
“He threw his shirt in the fire?” Collins looked at the forensic man in the blue blazer. “Did you check the wood stove?”
The man looked shell shocked.
“Did you check it?”
“No,” he said, “not yet.”
More men pushed into the kitchen behind Collins.
“Well check it!” shouted Collins.
The man opened the door on the wood stove and used the poker to drag through the ashes. He pulled a penlight out and shined it in the center of the ash pile. He stabbed at it again.
David could feel the presence of Agent Cooper moving in behind him. This was a man he had spent the last six months trying to prove his innocence to, a man interested only in facts and evidence. Sadly, when pressured to prove his ability, the messages had been frustratingly sketchy. If this went south, it would make what was already a fragile situation much worse. That was the last thing he needed right now. David lifted a silent prayer. Please, God, I need this.
The man from forensics took some large tweezers and reached into the belly of the stove. “Well, what do we have here?” he grunted, slowly pulling a burnt clump from the ashes. “Definitely burnt fabric, most likely cotton, but we’ll have to bring it back to the lab to figure out if it came from a shirt.”
“All right,” said the captain, appearing in the doorway to the living room, “that’s enough parlor games for one day. Let’s get back to real police work. Agent Collins, Mr. Chance, why don’t you accompany me to the front of the house. The rest of you get back to what you were doing before the show began.”
There were some groans and a couple grumbles as the group filtered back out onto the porch. More than a few men paused to look in through the window at David as they herded through to the back door. He had not produced the murder weapon, but at least a portion of his integrity was still intact.
Once they reached the front of the house, the captain turned around and addressed Collins. “You got your ten minutes. I expect you to keep your word.”
Collins straightened his suit coat. “You’ve been more than fair. I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t proceed with our original agreement.”
“As for you,” said the captain, turning to David, “good guess on the burned shirt. I’m sure that piece of evidence will prove helpful in the case. But I don’t want you anywhere near this case again. You got it? Our job is hard enough without a three-ring circus.”
David nodded.
“And, as you could tell from the sergeant’s behavior, some of our guys don’t exactly like you. They think you had something to do with that dirty bomb scare. A lot of people were put in danger during that whole thing.”
“I know,” said David.”
“They’re not exactly happy to have you around. Even if you do have some kind of weird psychic thing, you’ll have a hard time changing their opinion about you. So why don’t you just go home and keep your nose clean and leave the crime fighting to the men in blue.” He adjusted his belt and pointed at Collins
. “And I would advise you, Agent, don’t get caught up in this man’s delusions or you might find your reputation permanently marred.” The Captain didn’t wait for a reply, but turned and headed toward a group of waiting officers, and one steely-eyed sergeant.
Collins leaned in toward David. “I’d say that went well.”
“If being run over by all sixteen wheels of a tractor trailer is considered well, then I’d say it went well too.”
He held his hand out. “Thanks for the help.”
David shook it. “I wasn’t much help, but you’re welcome.”
Collins gripped David’s hand and drew him in slightly. “I’m not authorized to explain, but I want you to know that what you did here today was a great help to our case. I owe you. If you ever need anything, call me at this number.” He held out a business card.
“Okay, and anytime you need me to find a small fragment of barely distinguishable cloth, give me a ring.”
Collins laughed. “I just might take you up on that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Hello?” said the gravelly voice on the other side of the line.
Jon Blake gripped the phone in his hand, and cleared his throat. “Pete?”
“Jonny?”
Jon struggled to contain his anger. Pete had been like an uncle to him. He had been to every one of his birthday parties and many other important events of his life. In some ways, he was more of a father to him than his own dad. That made the betrayal worse. Jon hadn’t fully realized how deep the wound was until he heard his voice.
“Wow. I don’t know what to say, Jonny.”
“How could you?!” spat Jon. “How could you do this to us?”
“Whoa, slow down there, kid, things aren’t what they look like.”
“Don’t lie to me, Pete!”
“You’ve known me for years, Jonny. Think about it. Have I ever hurt you or your dad?”
Jon was silent.
“Jonny?”
“What are you saying? You didn’t do it? You didn’t sleep with Sandra and drive my dad to kill her?”
There was a rumble in the phone, then Pete was talking to someone else. “Yeah! Hold on. Just take this one. I have to go out back.” Pete worked at a local gas station and it sounded as though he didn’t want news of his exploits circulating around the garage. Jon heard the sound of a door slamming, and the background sound became muffled. “Listen, Jonny, this is not what you think. I didn’t sleep with Sandra.”
VOICES: Book 2 in the David Chance series (Suspense, Mystery, Thriller) Page 6
