Contents
Book Info
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
About this Story
About The Author
Witness Sample
The PsyCop Series
Book Info
Agent Bayne
PsyCop 9
Jordan Castillo Price
Find more titles at
www.JCPbooks.com
Cover art by Jordan Castillo Price
Agent Bayne: PsyCop 9 © 2018 Jordan Castillo Price. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN 978-1-935540-96-0
Electronic edition 1.0
Dedication
To Paula Foley Tillen and Bob Tillen, who love cemeteries
Jodie Lobb, who loaned me her name for an FPMP agent
and Della Boynton, who finds dead bodies
Chapter 1
I often wonder what history’s first party was like. I envision a bunch of Neanderthals sitting around the fire, and one of them leaps up and says, “I know, let’s play a bunch of ridiculous games, gorge on unhealthy food, and embarrass someone.” Probably not—they were too busy trying to avoid getting eaten by sabertooth tigers. But whoever invented the concept of the party, I’d love to track down their spirit and give them a piece of my mind. Because if I thought working at the police station with a bunch of no-neck, testosterone-pumped cavemen was bad, I was entirely unprepared for how excruciating my farewell shindig would be.
Oh, I’d been to enough office goodbyes myself. Here’s how they’d usually go down: Betty would cycle through and collect five bucks from everyone, Niedermayer would promise to pay up but never do it, Collins would offer to go get the cake to ensure it didn’t contain lemon, strawberries, pineapple, or any other potential fruit, and Warwick would come in, say a few stiff words, and leave us all to our coffee.
What I hadn’t really paid much attention to was the overall sadness of the whole thing. Not the nostalgia or the heartfelt goodbyes, but the photocopied good luck sign, the haphazard attempt at hanging a few streamers…just the overall tenor of a halfhearted show of camaraderie.
Since the coffee corner was within view of my desk, the drooping, pathetic excuse for a sendoff was lurking in my peripheral vision as I cleaned out my drawers.
Right across the desk, Bob Zigler was soldiering on without me already, and I wasn’t even gone yet. Without a psychic liability to protect, he was free to take on the organization of a big community intervention program our boss had been putting off for months. It involved a mind-numbing array of spreadsheets and a litany of phone calls. Zig had always been your quintessential Chicago detective, with a graying cop mustache and a gait that compensated for the gun at his belt. Back when he’d first been matched with me, he was eager to put a dent in our homicide backlog. Nowadays, he seemed relieved to be wrangling donations for the local after-school program.
When he hung up with a business owner who’d grudgingly pledged ten backpacks and a case of notebooks, I said to him, “So…what’s the deal? In the long term, I mean. If they bring in another Psych, are you still up for the whole PsyCop gig?”
“If there’s another medium lined up, no one’s told me about it.”
“Not a medium—there aren’t enough of us to go around, not that we know of, anyhow. But maybe that’s a good thing. If defense attorneys can blow a case by getting a jury all weirded out about statements coming from dead victims, maybe another type of Psych is the way to go. A good empath, for instance, to help you handle the witnesses. Or a clairvoyant to tell you where to focus.”
“We’ll see,” he said vaguely. And Bob Zigler might be plenty of things, but vague wasn’t one of them. He checked his watch. “Well, it’s noon, might as well head over to the cake.”
I let the matter drop.
A few patrol officers hovered casually nearby with their coffees—it would’ve been seriously uncool for anyone to cut the official cake but me—but there weren’t as many people lingering around as there had been, back when Maurice retired. Maybe the rest were out on patrol. More likely, though, my general lack of popularity was to blame. That shouldn’t have hurt my feelings, of course. I wasn’t a kid getting picked last for kickball. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t unexpectedly disappointed by the turnout.
Betty bustled over from the reception desk and put the cake knife in my hand as a not-so-subtle hint to get on with things. I hacked the cake into a lopsided grid. “We’re sure gonna miss you, Detective.” Betty blinked in confusion, then added, “Well, I guess it’s not Detective anymore, is it? What will we call you now?”
Sergeant Warwick joined us then, and put the awkward conversation out of its misery. “He’s graduating to a federal agency…and that’s all that will be said on the matter.” He glared around at the few coworkers waiting for cake, and they all mumbled and nodded. Warwick was a generation older than me, so maybe that’s why I’ve always thought of him as “old.” Though I supposed nowadays there was more gray in his bristling mustache and heavier jowls threatening to overflow his stiff collar.
“Anyways,” he went on. “We appreciate your service and wish you all the best.”
Were his goodbye speeches always so generic and stilted? Who knows. Maybe it was the best he could do, since he wasn’t allowed to say, “Watch your ass, Bayne. Don’t go getting yourself killed, like my nephew did.” Though I suspected I saw the warning in his eyes.
My soon-to-be ex-coworkers gave a polite clap, and Warwick grabbed a slice of cake, marched back into his office and closed the door. I figured my socializing quota had been met and I was free to make my escape, but then Jeff Raleigh sauntered up with a wrapped gift in his hand and a shit-eating grin on his face.
The nasty smile set off all kinds of internal alarms, but then I realized it was nothing more threatening than the farewell gag gift, yet another time-worn Fifth Precinct tradition. Always something stupid and profoundly useless like a clock with thirteen hours on it, or an aerosol spray that smelled like synthetic fart. I took the box and shook it. Whatever was inside was lightweight, not too big. I was prepared for something lame, so as I peeled open the box and pulled out a wad of material, my first thought was, Cool, a T-shirt. Who can’t use an extra T-shirt? But then I shook it out and got a load of the graphic: Bikini Inspector.
The neckless cavemen around me all chuckled.
It was a gag gift, I reminded myself. Something useless. Something absurd. But the question
was, had they given me such a blatantly testosterone-fueled item as their way of inferring I’d never been quite manly enough to measure up? Or was it something deeper, an assertion that they’d always known I was queer, and now they were finally free to make a good dig about it. I looked up and raised an eyebrow.
Warjovsky piped up, “What, you don’t think it’s funny?”
I was a little surprised to be catching shit from him, especially after what we’d seen together in the zombie basement. “How so?”
He laughed easily. “Like you ever go to the beach!”
* * *
Fourteen years. As I gathered my things, I tried, and failed, to think about anything in my life I’d done for fourteen years. School? If I’d been able to finish out my senior year of high school, maybe—thanks to the fact that I had to repeat both fourth and sixth grade. Hockey? A season and a half. Ping-pong? I just signed up for that to get out of football. And while I did play the recorder in band through both of my attempts at fourth grade, I usually just sat in the back and pretended to blow, so that really didn’t count. Relationship? Not even close. Jacob and I had celebrated an anniversary some months back—though we weren’t too clear if it started with the hello-handjob or him moving in a week later—and as relationship longevity went, that struck me as pretty darn impressive.
After fourteen whole years, it seemed like my desk would’ve amassed more stuff. I walked out to my car with the cardboard box in hand. A few good pens I thought would improve my handwriting. Some business cards from people I no longer remembered. Notebooks, mostly blank. A mini magnetic sculpture, still in the box. While I had unearthed a truly amazing collection of paperclips, I’d scored it from Betty’s supply closet, so it hardly seemed fair to keep them. Ditto the scissors, stapler, and most everything else. What kinds of things do normal people cart out of the office on their last day? Plants? Souvenirs? Photos of their friends and family? I didn’t have anything like that, unless the T-shirt counted as a souvenir. But given the fact that every time I saw it I was likely to rehash the discomfort of not being sure if it was really a stab at my manliness, it was hardly a sentimental item. In the end, I took the long way around the parking lot and pitched the whole box into the dumpster, then headed back home.
It was at the cannery that the gravity of the situation really hit me. I was no longer part of the Chicago Police Department. Given that I was none too keen on joining in the first place, you’d think I’d be relieved. But it didn’t feel anywhere near as good as I’d expected. Just strange.
My hand went to my empty holster, then to the breast pocket where the weight of my badge was conspicuously absent. The only thing left from my extended tenure was my paper PsyCop license. I pulled it out and ran my thumb along the edge, which was dull and fuzzy with age. I supposed that small scrap of paper was the weightiest thing of all. I’d never aspired to be a PsyCop, but I’d been good at it. I stuck with it too, until I realized that my collars were walking free, and being good didn’t mean shit. If I was starting to feel maudlin about leaving that career behind, remembering what it was like to find out my efforts amounted to only so much busywork was enough to snap me out of it.
I pulled off my necktie and pulled on an old T-shirt. No Bikini Inspector there, just a few coffee stains. Maybe I should’ve kept that dumb shirt as a reminder of how it felt, after coming out as a teenager, to be back in the closet as an adult. Not that I ever placed much value in letting anyone at work get to know the “real” me. That only invited a world of hurt. But I’d be turning forty soon, and sneaking around the gay elephant in the room had gotten really old.
Plenty of folks in the Federal Psychic Monitoring Program already knew Jacob and I were a couple, and anyone who didn’t could probably lift the idea from our minds. Knowing that I wouldn’t be hiding such a basic, normal, healthy aspect of my life anymore? You’d think I’d feel a weight off my shoulders, but the relief was replaced by the resentment that I’d been carrying a burden all these years.
I went into the kitchen, located a list Jacob had tacked to the refrigerator for me, and began working on dinner. Jacob can assess what’s in the fridge, recall what we’ve got stashed in the cupboards, and put together an actual meal without consulting a written recipe. Me? I needed a clear roadmap to ensure we didn’t end up in a nasty dinner cul-de-sac. And even then, with everything written out, I still mixed up teaspoons and tablespoons more often than not. Good thing he didn’t hook up with me for my culinary ability.
By the time I got the water boiling, Jacob was in the front hall kicking snow off his shoes. He came and joined me in the kitchen, pressed himself up against my back, slipped his arms around my waist, and nuzzled the back of my neck.
I attempted to shrug him off. “We don’t want the water to boil off. Again.”
“I have it on good authority that if you turn that tap over by the sink, you’ll find more.”
Regretfully, I slipped his manhandling and started shoving carrot peels down the disposal. It was a Pavlovian thing, I guess, but the sound of the gears grinding inspired me to talk shop, even though I doubted there was any news that was worthy of the electronic listening devices we had so much fun evading.
“So…do you think we’ll be sharing an office?” I ventured.
Jacob handed me a wooden spoon and pointed me toward the stove. “In the Oversight Division? That’s hard to picture.”
Why not? I’d be overseeing ghosts. Or, more precisely, the lack of.
But, no. That was really a stretch. It was more the desire to ride Jacob’s successful coattails than any actual logic at play. I dumped in the pasta and stirred. Water sloshed over the side of the pot and hissed against the hot burner as if to berate me. Not for my painful attempt at cooking, but the thought that I’d be anywhere near as good at navigating the FPMP as he was. Sure, I saw ghosts. But once those repeaters were taken care of, what more use would I really be?
Jacob, on the other hand, was always so damn confident. Even though, on paper, he was a lowly Non-Psychic—and even though he hadn’t developed much of a grasp on his True Stiff ability—he still walks into the room like he owns the place. And somehow, everyone else is swept along in the tide of his self-assured charisma.
Me…I just do my best to not bring any undue attention my way.
Jacob took the wooden spoon from me and set it on the countertop. When he fit himself against my back and put his arms around me again, I surrendered to the attention, mainly because I was shoved against a countertop. But also because it did feel better having someone to talk to about it.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “The only friend I ever had at the Fifth Precinct was Maurice, and he’s gone now. So why the heck do I feel like I’m gonna miss the joint?”
Jacob didn’t answer. He knows when to let rhetorical questions lie. Instead, he sank his thumbs into the rigid muscles between my shoulder blades and did his best to massage away my worries.
I was so tense, it hurt.
“If ever a position existed that seemed tailor-made for me, it’s the FPMP’s official medium. Even so, I feel like…a fraud.” I laughed bitterly. “Dumb, right?”
Most people I know would say, Everybody feels that way sometimes. But not Jacob. That was a good thing—it meant he wouldn’t lie to spare my feelings, and if there’s anything I hate, it’s the thought of being coddled. Instead, he tried to comfort me by trailing a hot kiss across the nape of my neck. “First day jitters,” he murmured. “It’ll all be okay. Remember, you’re not the first new hire the FPMP’s ever had, and I’m sure you won’t be the last. And I’ve got your back. Always.”
Chapter 2
If I had questions about what the new director of the FPMP had in store for me the next morning, it didn’t appear that I would get to ask them anytime soon. Jacob split off from me just as soon as we parked the car, and I headed toward personnel. My intake was somewhat streamlined, owing to the fact that I had already been photographed and fingerprinted for
my previous consulting work. That just left another whopping sheaf of paperwork to sign, a new access badge with a magnetic strip that would allow me to walk around without a babysitter, and…a polygraph.
Now, if somebody at the FPMP wanted to glean some facts about me, they could easily have a telepath peer into my brain. But the thought of the actual test—being hooked up to a series of electrodes and sensors, and having my responses analyzed and engraved on my permanent record—felt way too much like Camp Hell.
The woman administering the test wasn’t particularly scary. In fact, she had kind eyes and she was at least a dozen years younger than me, but certain experiences can’t help but leave a scar. And this one felt surprisingly sensitive.
The young woman looked down at her clipboard and said, “Okay, Victor, if you’ll just have a seat and—”
“No.”
“You really do need to sit down so we can measure your blood pressure and galvanic skin response—”
“No.”
She cocked her head as if she’d never heard the word before. And in this context, maybe she hadn’t.
“I’m not taking a polygraph,” I said, “and it’s not up for debate. If that’s a problem, take it up with the director.”
She turned to her computer and began typing, leaving me to stand there awkwardly. But I’m an old pro at awkward standing. Eventually, she turned back to me and said, “Director Kim has postponed the polygraph.” Did she seem surprised, or was I just feeling smug about having a personal relationship with the boss? “That puts you ahead of schedule, so she’s having you repeat the policy orientation instead.”
A rehashing of FPMP policy wouldn’t exactly be riveting, and even I could remember the salient points, since it amounted to a massive gag order restricting me from telling anyone about what I did. But boredom was fine by me. I’d had enough excitement to last a lifetime.
There was a handful of other new recruits in the conference room. Most of the men and women had the ramrod posture look of ex-military about them, but not all. A Caucasian guy in his forties, with oversized round tortoiseshell glasses and an avid video gamer’s undernourished physique, sat apart from the other fledgeling agents with his arms and legs crossed, and one foot jiggling nervously. When he looked up and met my eye, I felt a spark of recognition, but couldn’t quite place the face. His eyes narrowed in assessment. “Do I know you from somewhere?” he said.
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