Spook Squad (21 page)

“Label-makers Gone Wild.”

“A few years ago I had an assignment down there. I was helping them crunch a huge pile of data, a room full of forms, all of it on paper, nothing digitized or searchable. It was nice and quiet, no ringing phone, no interruptions. But even so….” She gave a shiver. “I was glad when it was over. It’s creepy down there.”

I’d been spooked too, though my own issues were caused by my history with Camp Hell. Although if Laura Kim said a particular location creeped her out, I was inclined to wonder why.

I was also inclined to wonder why I’d ever taken her to be a murderer. Sure, she’d been in front of the federal prison that day, but so had hundreds of other people. In our recent conversations, she’d mentioned working offsite on occasion, and also that her job involved a fair amount of analysis. If Con Dreyfuss wanted a set of physical eyes and ears downtown the day that Roger was released, it made plenty of sense to send someone as savvy and observant as Laura. So what if Roger Burke implicated her—what did that actually prove? Burke had drugged a good two dozen coffees and handed them to me with a smile. How far-fetched would it be for him to point me in the wrong direction, either to cover his own ass, or to glean a final moment of sick satisfaction by pitting me against someone I might actually like?

As we walked toward the elevator, I realized I’d learned plenty about Laura during our lunch, but nothing I could use. Proving that she wasn’t the shooter could at least be a step in discovering who the killer actually was, and maybe now that she and I had broken bread together, she’d be willing to hint at her real reason for being downtown that afternoon. Doing my best to sound as casual as if we were still talking about manatees, I said, “D’you remember the day Roger Burke was released?”

“Do I ever.” Laura paused in front of the elevators, but didn’t hit the button. She leaned toward me and said, “I had such a bad migraine, I would’ve checked myself into the emergency room if I thought it would do me any good. I left work early and took so many meds I was out of it for days.”

Although shooting someone in the head might easily be stressful enough to trigger a reaction in the body, this didn’t strike me as the type of response the shooter would give me. I tried to sound sympathetic. “And it was probably a mess to get home, all the chaos, all the traffic.”

“No, not really. I just caught a cab.”

“It was a mob scene down there. My partner needed to lay on the flashers and siren to get out of the jam.”

“Oh sure, down by the Correctional Center. But I’m talking about the Near North Side before lunchtime. As far as I can remember, traffic was pretty light. If I’d been caught in that mess down in the Loop, I dunno what I would’ve done.”

We rode up to the fifth floor while I tried to determine if she was really saying what I thought she was saying. “Then you weren’t downtown,” I clarified.

“Nope, I missed all the commotion.” The elevator doors opened. She went back to her desk and tossed our fast food remnants in her trash. “I’m glad you suggested lunch, Detective. My stomach won’t thank me later, but for now I’m one happy camper. As to your donation, I’ll make it anonymously to protect your privacy, and send your adoption certificate home with Agent Marks.”

I stood, nodding stupidly, and wondered how to say,
But we talked to each other that day, as surely as we’re talking right now
.
 

Given some of the mind-bending stuff I’ve seen—fingernail demons and shapeshifting succubi—and given the fact that the sí-no wouldn’t peg her as the shooter, how could I be one hundred percent sure that the woman I’d spoken to in the bus shelter that fateful day was really Laura Kim?

Chapter 18

So I’d gotten our main suspect alone, but now I was more confused than ever. Nothing was adding up. Laura, the potential assassin, got choked up when she thought too hard about the plight of plankton and krill. Meanwhile, Con Dreyfuss, my personal nemesis, was filibustering Washington over a single lost job.
 

Although…the fact that Dreyfuss and Washington didn’t see eye to eye could be significant. What if Washington was calling some shots that Dreyfuss didn’t authorize? Maybe it was Washington that told Laura to take out Roger Burke. And Jennifer Chance, too.

Sure. Right after Laura talked everybody into adopting a manatee.

I’d been girding myself for another head-splitting visit with Dreyfuss and his repeaters, so I was relieved when Laura gathered Richie, Carl and me in the lounge and said, “A meeting came up. Agent Dreyfuss can’t join you this afternoon, so he’d like you to sweep the perimeter for the rest of the day.” She then said to me specifically, “That’s outside, under viaducts and along the highway. The wind off the river is brutal. If you need gloves or a hat—”
 

“It’s fine.” I am so not a hat person. “I’m used to working outdoors.”

We all donned our overcoats, then stood there looking at each other. I waited for the FPMP agents to get going. Carl looked to Richie to lead the way when Richie said, “Well, go ahead.”

“Which kit should we bring?” Carl asked. It was the first time I’d ever heard him speak.

“Pick one,” Richie snapped. If Carl cared about the attitude, he didn’t show it. I’m guessing he’d been thoroughly briefed about the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I’m also guessing he received adequate compensation in return for his patience. He chose a spiffy briefcase, then looked again to Richie. Richie gestured toward the elevators and said, “Get going, then—why do I always have to do everything?”

Carl turned and led the way without so much as a raised eyebrow.

I hadn’t realized that being interrupted mid-rosary would leave Richie in such a snit. I’d need to bone up on his condition myself, although reading about it would no doubt leave me wracked with guilt over the way I used to treat him. In an effort to be nice without coming off as condescending, I asked, “Big plans for Sunday?”

He looked me over coolly, and said, “Nothing special.”

Cripes, I knew the game wasn’t quite as thrilling if the Bears weren’t playing, but I’d figured it might cheer him up to talk about the Falcons and the Patriots. Guess not.

It was cold outside, not a crisp winter subzero freeze that made everything fresh and new, but a damp late autumn cold driven home by a persistent wind. Still, the dank stretches under the viaducts probably smelled better now than they would in the summer, just judging by the occasional whiff of pee I detected despite the chill breeze.

Although you’d think anyone in their right mind would want to get the perimeter sweep over with and get back inside for a nice hot beverage, Richie poked along, prodding Carl to take the lead. Finally he said, “Explain to Detective Bayne what you’re doing. I’ll monitor.”

That request did earn a brief look of surprise, but Carl took the directive with his typical stoicism. We walked their usual route. Between the train tracks, the El, the highway and the warehouses, it was not exactly pedestrian friendly. But with the proximity of the Salvation Army, Carl told me, it did attract a fair amount of homeless people who were happy to tuck themselves away in a nice deserted spot to try and get out of the cold. Occasionally, one of them would expire. And the FPMP wasn’t keen on anyone they couldn’t see lurking around their offices.

“If Agent Duff thinks it’s necessary in any spot,” Carl said, “we do a blessing.”

Richie trudged along beside me. Not his normal free-wheeling galumph, either. He hunched against the cold with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his shoulders up around his ears. “Do you normally find much that needs blessing?” I asked.

“Are you testing me now?” Richie said. “What do
you
think?”

I thought it was way past someone’s naptime, but I refrained from saying so.

*
 
*
 
*

The end of the day couldn’t come soon enough. Between dour Carl and crabby Richie, I found myself wishing Dreyfuss would put in an appearance. At least he could hold up his end of a conversation. His Washington meeting kept him busy for the rest of the afternoon, though, and I ended up heading back home without checking in on Triple-Shot to see if he’d moved or faded, or if he was even still there at all. While I’d gotten to know Laura a lot better, what I’d discovered about her left me stumped. Still, the day hadn’t been a total bust. I’d figured out how Con Dreyfuss spent his evenings. And who he’d been spending them with.

Jacob wasn’t home yet when I pulled up behind Lisa’s car in front of the cannery, and that was fine by me. Although I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say, I’d still rather talk to Lisa alone. I’d had a bit of time to simmer down, and my initial shock at realizing the identity of the mystery man had worn off. I’d also had time to consider the fact that she’d been working up her courage to tell me all this time, and had planned on spilling the beans tonight. Still. What the hell had she been thinking?

I didn’t exactly mean to slam the front door, but thanks to an extra nudge from the wind, it sounded as if I did. So much for the subtle approach. Maybe that was for the best. After my meat grinder of a day, the only thing I wanted to do was get all my difficult conversations over with and enjoy one of my precious red pills in peace. I was debating how dickish I’d sound if I opened with,
Okay, so I know about Dreyfuss
, when I swung into the living room and found Lisa slumped at the dining room table, head in hands, poring over a pile of paper. She looked up at me, red-eyed. She’d been crying.

“Are you okay?” I crossed the room in a few steps, then stopped short, not knowing if I was supposed to hug her or pat her shoulder or what, baffled as to what I should do with my hands. “What happened?”

At my inept show of concern, the waterworks started. While Lisa cried, I jammed my hands in my overcoat pockets, ignoring the grittiness in my left pocket that might be spilled salt or might be a sifting of fairy dust I’d managed to summon without meaning to. Lisa swiped brutally at her eyes with a soggy wad of tissue, then blew her nose, took a centering breath, and said, “I gotta tell you something.”

“Okay.” I pulled a chair around and sat so I was facing her with my knees brushing her thigh. Luckily, her fiddling with the wet tissue excused me from needing to decide if holding her hands was expected of me or not. “It’s, y’know…” I decided not to blurt out what I already knew. If I was lucky, maybe Dreyfuss would break it off with her once he realized I was so desperate for reds, he didn’t need to use Lisa to get to me. “Whatever it is. It’s fine.”

“The guy I’ve been seeing…” she chewed on the end of the sentence for a while, then finally said, “it’s Constantine.”

And there it was. “I suspected.”
 

It sounded gentler than
I know.
Still, she was surprised. “He didn’t tell you. You didn’t see us together.” She didn’t bother hiding the fact that her mental process had become one giant sí-no. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter, it’s not important. He says his office is haunted for sure—and not the repeaters. Something was
on
him. What the hell was it?”
 

“Well…” shit, where to begin? “Sometimes, when a GhosTV is playing, I see things in the astral or wherever. Not ghosts.” I could tell that if the word
jellyfish
left my mouth, she’d freak. “Energy, maybe. I don’t think it’s dead. I don’t think it was ever a person.”

“He had an astral thing on his head?”

“It wasn’t…” I held up my hands and flapped them in the air above me. “Not
directly
on his head.” I figured I’d better not mention the goopy tethers, either. “In the general vicinity.”

Lisa frowned and thought, though I couldn’t imagine what she might be asking the sí-no now.

“Dreyfuss was the one who jumped to the conclusion there was a ghost on his head.” Not that I could blame him, considering he had three nasty repeaters around his desk and a sentient ghost lurking behind the curtain, and the medium on his payroll thought the Hail Mary involved boxer-briefs. “I tried to tell him, but…” I shrugged.

Lisa’s eyes tracked back and forth as she processed my explanation while I looked down at a tear-stained scrawl on a torn sheet of notebook paper.
 

Entity—yes. Ghost—no. Invisible—yes. Alive—? Sentient—? Evil—?
 

Ask the sí-no if it was a fingernail demon.
Yeah, right. “It seemed to react when he bit his nails.”

She stared at her inconclusive notes, then said, “Oh.”

“Maybe it was like…a habit?”

“Oh my God.”

I put Lisa’s notes in a pile, tamped the paper edges into alignment, then began nudging the loose puzzle pieces underneath into an even row. “I got rid of it.”

She nodded.

“Come on,” I said, “you should be glad. Since his cuticles gross you out.”

She was quiet a long time, staring at the puzzle pieces I was arranging. Finally she said, “He didn’t tell you about us?”

“Not exactly. His handwriting did.”

“I thought you’d be mad.” She considered the statement, then corrected herself. “I
knew
you’d be mad.”

I had been. But seeing what a wreck Lisa was over the fingernail demons…well, who the hell am I to judge? “Tell me you gave Dreyfuss a going-over with the sí-no and he’s not just interested in your psychic ability, that he’s interested in you.”

“He is,” she whispered.

Dreyfuss was no Mexican firefighter, that’s for sure, but… “I guess I can see how he might come off as charming. If you like the wiseass type.”

“I wasn’t in the market, you know. I figured I was done with men, at least until I sorted out what happened at PsyTrain.” But since the two of them had met in Santa Barbara, she explained, he would occasionally consult with her on matters of FPMP intelligence. This was news, but like so much in my life, it didn’t exactly surprise me. After all, Lisa never seemed to be hurting for cash, so she’d obviously been working somewhere.

Dreyfuss, being paranoid, would only talk to her in person. He figured it was best to make their meetings look like dates to keep Lisa from attracting any anti-Psych attention. On their third fake date, in a dilapidated movie theatre with sticky floors, Lisa realized Dreyfuss was gazing at her with something more than businesslike interest when the lights came up. She was inclined to brush off the idea that the Regional Director of the FPMP was harboring romantic notions, but she couldn’t resist checking in with the sí-no…which confirmed that Con Dreyfuss had indeed taken a shine to her.