Lethal Outlook

by Victoria Laurie

  Candice continued to probe for info over the course of the next ten minutes, but it was pretty evident that the officer didn’t have anything significant to offer us. It was clear that we’d enter the case with very little to go on. “Can you get me a copy of the case file?” Candice asked near the end of my patience level for Purcell.

  The beat cop tilted her chin back and laughed heartily. “Not likely, Candy.” Candice frowned and Purcell softened. “Listen, the best I can do is give you the name of the lead detective, but I gotta be straight with you: APD ain’t gonna like a private investigator with a psychic tagalong butting into their business.”

  Purcell had actually used air quotes around the word “psychic.” I wanted to sock her in the nose. I felt Candice’s firm hand on my wrist under the table. “I get the fact that APD, as a whole, is pretty skeptical about any intuitive insight,” she said calmly. “But our track record speaks for itself, and the fact that Abby has worked for other police departments as well as the FBI and the CIA should carry some weight.”

  “Not around here,” Purcell replied. “And not with a mandate from the DA about how no one in the department is to solicit or take info from any so-called psychics.” At this point, Purcell actually looked at me. “Around here,” she said, “law enforcement thinks people like you are a joke.”

  I could feel my face flush and my heart start to pound. For an instant I saw red and I badly wanted to unleash my temper on the woman looking at me like I was garbage. Instead I got up, gathering my coffee cup and napkin, and said, “If you’ll excuse me.”

  I gimped my way back into the coffee shop and found a table in the corner. I sat down, turned my back to the other patrons, and worked to quell my anger and hurt feelings.

  Candice found me just a few minutes later. “I’m so sorry,” she said gently, taking up the seat next to me.

  My eyes were brimming with tears, and I didn’t know whether it was because I was mad that Purcell had hurt my feelings or because I was ticked off at a world that likely would never completely accept what I could do. There were just too many people like Purcell out there who would scoff at the very notion that I actually had a legitimate talent. “It’s fine,” I said, blinking furiously and donning my sunglasses so that she wouldn’t see how upset I was.

  “Hey,” Candice said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “She just doesn’t know how amazing you are, Abs.”

  I nodded and swallowed hard. “It’s fine,” I repeated. Candice hardly looked convinced. “Really,” I said, getting up from the stool where I’d been having my little pity party and motioning for us to go.

  Once we were outside walking back toward the parking garage, I took a deep, steadying breath and was able to say more than two words. “Did she give you anything more after I left?”

  “Nope,” Candice said. “But I sure as hell gave her an earful.”

  I stopped walking. “Wait, you what?”

  “I reamed her out,” Candice said, still moving.

  I hobbled hastily to catch up with her. “Why would you do something like that? She was your only source at the APD and she has a gigantic crush on you! Someone like her could be a huge asset to you in the future. Especially if she climbs up the ranks.”

  Candice wrapped her arm around me again. “As long as she’s such a bitch to you, Sundance, she’s no good to me. There’ll be other sources. And if not, well…as long as I’ve got you for a partner, why would I really need anyone else?”

  My eyes welled up again, but for a completely different reason this time.

  Chapter Three

  After the meeting with Purcell, Candice and I drove to our office. I had a client at ten and she wanted to get to work on Kendra’s case. I knew she’d want to find out who was representing Kendra’s husband, but now that she’d cut ties with Purcell, I also knew that was going be a bit of a challenge. “Where’re you thinking of starting?” I asked once we’d unlocked the door to our suite.

  “With you,” Candice said. “But I’ll wait until after you’re done with your client.”

  I eyed her curiously. “Wait, you want to start with me?”

  Candice flipped the light switch and moved with me into my half of the office. “There’s something I want to try,” she explained. “You know how, when you work with the feds, you always have a file to focus on?”

  “Yeah.” I wondered where she was going with this.

  “Well, I’ve watched you carefully when you work one of their cases, Sundance, and sometimes you don’t even open the file. You just close your eyes, put your hand on the front cover, and start pulling relevant stuff out of the ether. It’s amazing.”

  I blushed. Candice was at the top of my list of favorite people today. “You want me to pretend to have Kendra’s case file in front of me and see what I can come up with, right?”

  Candice winked. “Yep. I was thinking that I could work up a list of questions for you to help guide us through an intuitive discussion, and who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  I considered that for about two seconds. “I think that’s a great idea!”

  “Cool. We’ll meet in my office at eleven, talk until noon, then go to lunch. On me.”

  That gave me pause. Candice ate healthy…like, wheat-germ-with-a-side-of-tree-bark healthy. “Are you also picking where?” I asked cautiously.

  She rolled her eyes. “You can choose as long as it’s not another hot dog, burger, or nacho place.”

  I scowled. “What’s left?”

  “Plenty,” she said, turning on her heel to leave me to ponder the possibilities.

  My client was super nervous and a little bit late, which made her energy very scattered, and it took me a minute to try to sort through it and spit out a reading that would make sense. She seemed pleased with the results, however, and I was just happy to tune in on something other than murder and mayhem for a change. She was a lovely woman, with lots of exciting things on her horizon, so I was feeling pretty good by the time we wrapped it up.

  Once I’d shown her out, I moved into Candice’s office. My hips were killing me and I really wanted to take a pain pill, but I didn’t want to dull my sixth sense, which can happen with certain meds, so I steered clear. I promised myself that I’d take a pain pill at lunch (and boy, did I have a great idea for where!).

  “I think your limp is getting worse,” Candice said, looking up from her computer to study me critically.

  “I had physical therapy yesterday, remember?” The day after my physical therapy sessions was always the worst. This could be because, although I saw my therapist once or twice a week depending on my schedule, I was supposed to do some additional exercises and stretches every day. I avoided these like I did pretty much every other unpleasant thing in my life.

  “It wouldn’t hurt so much if you’d do your home therapy like you’re supposed to,” Candice remarked. She knew me pretty well.

  “Did you come up with some questions for me?” I decided to change the subject before things got testy.

  “Yeah, but come have a look at this first.”

  I moved around her desk to stand next to her and she swiveled the monitor of her computer slightly. On the screen was a grainy photo of a sizable group of women standing formally in three curved rows. The Web site indicated they were part of the Travis County Women Lawyer’s Association. Candice pointed to a woman with short chestnut hair in the third row. “Who’s that?” I asked.

  “Chelsea Gagliano. Tristan Moreno’s attorney.”

  “How’d you get her name?”

  Candice gave me a sideways grin. “Purcell finally coughed it up after I reamed her out,” she explained. “I only caught a glimpse of your client when she came in here yesterday, but this could be her, couldn’t it?”

  I squinted at the screen. It was really hard to tell because the photo was of a terrible quality. “Maybe,” I said in a tone that suggested I definitely wasn’t sure.

  “Yeah, I’m not convinced either. It could have
been her, but it easily could have been someone else.”

  Then I thought of something. “You know, she did say that her firm had been retained, Candice. She didn’t say that she specifically had been hired to represent the murderer.” In fact, she’d made sure to let me know that it was her firm that’d taken on the client and because she was the best litigator, the case might be assigned to her.

  I told Candice as much, and she said, “That could have been a bit of a smoke screen, Abs.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if I was taking a huge risk by coming to see you and putting my career on the line, I might create a little smoke so that you wouldn’t look into my identity too hard, by telling you that it wasn’t actually my client, but my firm’s.”

  “That’d make her pretty crafty,” I replied.

  “Or a natural-born attorney,” Candice countered.

  She had a point there. “I think we have to assume it could be either scenario,” I said after thinking about it.

  Candice nodded and clicked a few keys to navigate her browser to the home page for Turner, Kramer, and Marr, attorneys at law. The photo on the home page was of a very large building, and the side menu selections indicated that these guys did it all, from divorce to personal injury, tax law, and criminal defense.

  My eyes bugged. “How many attorneys at this firm?”

  “Forty-two,” Candice said with a sigh. “And, unfortunately, only the three male partners list their photos online.”

  “So we’re back to square one,” I said.

  Candice motioned to the seat opposite her and I sat down holding in a grimace. “Not entirely. I mean, we still have your magical ability to pull all kinds of stuff out of thin air.”

  I laughed. “Nice way to butter me up.”

  “It’s true,” she insisted. “And as we have nothing but our suspicion that your client from yesterday was here about Kendra Moreno, I think we should go for it.” Candice then placed her iPhone on the desk between us. I knew she’d want to record this. “I’m going to avoid softball questions, if that’s okay with you?”

  “Good,” I said, loving that Candice really got how my intuition worked more like a tool than a party trick. “Bring it on, Cassidy.”

  “The first question I have is: What happened to Kendra Moreno on the afternoon of September twenty-eighth?”

  I closed my eyes and focused on the name Kendra Moreno. Names normally don’t mean anything to me, but I’d seen her picture on the news, and I’d also picked up that she was dead, so I thought I had a pretty good bead on her energy. “She never saw it coming,” I whispered.

  “What’d you say?” Candice asked.

  I opened my eyes. “I feel like Kendra knew and trusted her killer.”

  “She knew her husband,” Candice said. “Whether she trusted him remains to be seen.”

  I focused again on that feeling of betrayal. “I definitely think the killer was a male, and I definitely think he came to her house alone. I get this sense like she might have even been glad to see him, but the moment her back was turned, things got ugly…fast.”

  “So she was attacked from behind?” Candice asked.

  I nodded. “Yes. I feel like it came as a quick and sudden shock to her that he would be so violent against her.”

  Candice’s expression turned pensive.

  “What?”

  She sighed. “It’s the fact that there was no sign of a struggle that really has me bothered. If he attacked her violently, something should have been out of place, shouldn’t it? Or a fingerprint should have been left behind. I mean, if the killer showed up wearing gloves, Kendra would have sensed something was wrong. And even if he attacked her from behind—with her kid in the house, don’t you think she would have put up a fight?”

  I sighed. “Maybe he shoved a gun into her back,” I said. “Maybe he threatened to hurt her son if she so much as flinched.”

  Candice’s finger tapped the desktop. “Okay,” she conceded. “That’s a good point. What else you got?”

  “I don’t know. Ask me some more questions,” I said, closing my eyes again. I didn’t want to be led by any assumptions; I wanted to pull the answers from the ether.

  “You’re positive that Kendra’s dead?” Candice asked.

  I sighed sadly. The answer was so clear. “Yes.”

  “How did she die?”

  I felt a slight pressure over my nose and mouth and I shuddered. That feeling always creeped me out. “She was smothered.”

  “Not shot or stabbed?” Candice asked.

  I knew why she was asking about the manner of Kendra’s death. If our theory about catching Kendra unawares from behind was correct, then the most obvious way to render someone compliant was by shoving a gun or another kind of weapon into her back. But I felt quite certain that Kendra hadn’t been shot or stabbed—she’d been smothered. I said as much to Candice.

  “Well, that complicates things,” Candice said grimly. “If the killer had had a gun or a knife with him when he abducted her, he would have shot or stabbed her to finish her off. Smothering someone takes energy and time.”

  “There’s more,” I said feeling another series of impressions against my energy. “I think she was beaten too. Severely beaten.”

  “That suggests either rage or a serious psycho.”

  I nodded, holding my eyes closed and waiting for Candice’s next question.

  “Can you describe the killer?”

  This was a much harder thing to extract from the ether. The violent energy of Kendra’s death clouded over a lot of the details, but I was able to tweeze out some clues. “He was tall and athletic,” I said.

  “Why do you say athletic?” Candice asked.

  I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about it. The answer had just come to me. “Some things you just know,” I said.

  “Okay, what else?”

  “He feels unassuming in some way,” I told her. “Like, he may present himself as mild mannered to most people, but this guy has a crazy dark side.”

  “Do you think he acted alone?”

  When she asked that question I got a little stumped. I wanted to say no, mostly because Ms. Smith hadn’t mentioned anything about an accomplice, but I couldn’t ignore that I was sensing some other energy alongside this murderer, and that energy felt distinctly female. I said as much to Candice before trying to tweeze the truth of it out, like working to unravel a tangled knot of string. “There’s some sort of attachment between this man and woman,” I said. “I feel like the woman is the boss; she rules the relationship in some way and he’s all about acting to protect or to please her. I also feel like he has very strong romantic feelings for her, and Kendra’s murder was a result of his acting to protect that romantic relationship.”

  I opened my eyes and looked at Candice. She was frowning. “So this female was either an acquaintance or an accomplice?”

  I focused again on the energy of this couple, but it was so confusing and muddled that it was hard to make sense of it. “Yes, but I can’t tell which.” Then I tried to approach it from a different angle and I came across something interesting. “You know what, Candice? I feel like Kendra and this woman had some sort of connection and that there may have been some discord between the two. When I look at it from Kendra’s point of view, I can definitely see some anger and maybe even some jealousy there.”

  “This woman is an enemy of Kendra’s?” Candice asked.

  I shook my head. That didn’t quite fit. “No, it’s more like Kendra was the enemy of this woman. It feels weirdly one-sided.”

  “Huh,” my partner said. I knew how she felt. I was stumped too.

  I opened my eyes, sat back in the chair, and rubbed my temples. “I know it doesn’t make much sense.”

  So often the language of intuition won’t translate well into actual words. Much of it is based on feelings, sensations, moods, and a deep knowing that can be very difficult to put into English. Even when I successfully could put it i
nto words, oftentimes many of the puzzle pieces seemed to be missing and only time would work to reveal them.

  “You’re wincing,” Candice said, eyeing me critically again.

  “I’ve been sitting for too long. My hips are really bothering me.”

  Candice shut off the recorder on her phone and stood up. “Come on, partner. Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Once in her car, I directed Candice to a row of food trailers on South Congress in downtown Austin. To her credit, she didn’t protest. Much.

  I figured the lunch spot was the best way to accommodate both our food preferences. Candice liked Thai, and there was an amazing Thai trailer called the Coat and Thai, and I got my meal at the Mighty Cone, which serves all its food in cute paper cones. I ordered the famous chicken sandwich with the deep-fried avocado and their amazing French fries. Candice came to the picnic table area with something that looked like it’d grown out of the vacant lot next door.

  I figured between the two of us we’d balance out the food pyramid pretty well.

  Candice was a little quiet during lunch, and I figured she was thinking about the case. “You looking for an angle?” I asked. I knew my partner wouldn’t work on the case without at least trying to get hired by someone close to Kendra.

  “Yeah,” she said, taking a sip of her iced tea. “I think we should approach the husband first.”

  That shocked me. “The husband? Are you crazy? What if he’s the one who killed her?” I didn’t know if he’d had anything to do with it, but the guy had lawyered up pretty quick, which indicated that he was nervous about something.

  Candice was unfazed by my outburst. “If we approach him and he tells us that he’s not interested in hiring us, it’ll give you a chance to meet him and read his energy. We’ll also have more evidence that he’s trying to avoid any additional scrutiny into his wife’s disappearance.”

  “What if he says no because he doesn’t have the money to pay for us?” I asked.

  Candice seemed to consider that. “I’ll work up a credit report on him when we get back to the office. If I discover that he’s struggling financially, then we can offer to work the case either at a reduced rate or—if you’re in agreement—pro bono.”