Playing With Fire

by Dirk Greyson

  “I know.”

  “We have to figure this out before he kills again, and while he’s playing with us now with the phone calls, he’s going to get bored and make another move. We have to stop him before another innocent person is shot.”

  “I know that,” Jim snapped and put Penelope down on the floor. “Do you understand what I’ve been going through?” He paused, and Barty could see him steadying himself. “The first shots we investigated as individual shootings, and it wasn’t until the pattern emerged that we realized what we were dealing with. We wasted all that time before we figured out what was happening, and then with the last one, we were sure and brought you in to help. I’m spinning my wheels here, and I’m about to ask the captain to see if the FBI can help. Maybe I’m in over my head and it’s time to turn this over to someone else.”

  “Does anyone know this case as well as you? And there has been progress. At least you have a description. I know it’s going to be hard, but you have something to go on.”

  “Yes, and we’ve already put out an APB with the description, but it’s way too vague. If he could have seen just a little more, it would be helpful.” Frustration rolled off him, which Barty understood because he felt it as well. Barty wanted to be able to help, and he wasn’t sure he was really being of use. He could give him theories and ideas, but not hard facts, and that was what Jim needed.

  “Some cases take longer to crack,” Barty said. “But you will. I know it.” Penelope jumped into his lap, and he stroked down her soft fur, the action soothing his raw nerves. He tried not to think about the message or the fact that the shooter was aware of him. Concentrating on that was playing into his hands, and Barty didn’t want to do that. Jim was trained to be cool under pressure, and this case was getting to him. Barty supposed that was natural and all. He wasn’t trained in that way, but he liked to think he was level-headed. He snorted. Yeah, right. That coming from a man who hated to drive because of the stress of rush hour. Okay, so he didn’t handle pressure well, but he also wasn’t going to allow his thoughts and actions to get in the way of real progress. He had to keep his mind on what was important. “Why don’t you finish up what you need to and follow up on the things you’ve done, and then we can go to your house.” Barty was getting tired, and he needed a quiet place to think.

  Jim left the conference room without another word, and as soon as the door closed, Penelope wandered over and sat in front of the door, watching Jim at his desk and following him with her gaze whenever he moved about the station. She wasn’t happy when he stepped out of sight, and Barty had to admit he wasn’t either. He liked watching Jim, and his mind wandered to what Jim would look like without his shirt on.

  He wanted to slap himself. This was not the time or the place to be having those kinds of thoughts, but time and place didn’t seem to have much control over his lustful notions.

  “I’M READY to go,” Jim said almost two hours later, coming into the conference room and taking a seat. Penelope had climbed onto one of the other chairs and gone to sleep. She immediately woke and scolded him for taking so long. “She’s very vocal, isn’t she?”

  “Not usually, no. I think it’s you.” At home they were both quiet and had their routine, which had now been upset in a large way. Barty gathered his work together and put his computer to sleep before packing it away. He wasn’t particularly happy about this relocation. He would much rather be going home, but he understood they were concerned, and he had to admit he was most likely going to be safer at Jim’s, behind alarm systems with his own personal police officer nearby.

  “Well, let’s get going.”

  Jim was feeling down, and even Barty could sense it. Barty knew he wasn’t good around people, but what surprised him was how well he seemed to be able to understand and read Jim’s expressions and feelings.

  “You know this isn’t your fault,” Barty said.

  “Yes, I do. But I also know that four people have died and I haven’t been able to catch this guy.”

  Barty tilted his head slightly as he thought about what Jim said. “You’re the lead person, but the entire team is trying to figure out who is doing this. It isn’t you alone.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t really help.” Jim looked up from where he’d been studying his shoes and then stood. “We may as well go. Sitting here feeling sorry for myself isn’t going to solve this case for me.” He helped Barty gather Penelope’s things, and when the time came, she went right into her carrier without a peep. “Does she always do that?”

  Barty shook his head and showed Jim the scratches from earlier. “I’ll need to put something on these. Cat scratches can get infected easily.”

  They left the conference room, Jim gathered his things on the way, and then they went out to his car.

  Penelope seemed happy enough on the ride, and as soon as they were in Jim’s house, she cried to be let out. Jim opened the carrier, and she darted out and around the corner.

  “We need to find her. This place is big enough that she could get anywhere.”

  “I bet she’ll be fine,” Jim told him, and sure enough Penelope returned, winding around Jim’s legs. “Maybe she has a kitty crush on me.”

  “She’s not the only one” popped into Barty’s head, and he had to keep the words from crossing his lips. Nicole was right—he needed to talk to Jim, because there were things he didn’t understand and they were going to drive him crazy. Like the last few hours at the station where he’d sat in the conference room with papers to read for his students and yet hadn’t been able to take his gaze off Jim sitting at his desk. Instead of reading about theories on psychosis, he kept thinking about how Jim’s arms stretched his shirt as he moved. Jim was attractive—well beyond attractive: he was hot, superattractive. That wasn’t the problem. It was Barty trying to figure out if he should do anything about it, and if so, what?

  Of course, the entire time all this stuff had been running though his head, he’d been staring at Jim, and now Jim was staring back, and Barty was getting more and more flushed by the second. He’d have said he felt like a teenager, except he wasn’t really sure what a real teenager felt like since he’d missed out on most of that sort of thing.

  Jim didn’t say anything, but he didn’t turn away either. Barty licked his lips because his entire mouth had suddenly gone dry, and Jim did the same. He couldn’t read the expression in Jim’s eyes because it was so foreign to him, but it sent a renewed jolt of heat through him and he really didn’t know why.

  “I should see about something for dinner,” Jim said after a few seconds, and Barty knew he should turn away but couldn’t make himself do it.

  Penelope broke the connection between them with a demanding yowl. Then she jumped on the table, batted his hand with her paws, sailed to the floor, and blinked up at him like he was supposed to understand what she wanted.

  “Okay. If Uncle Jim will show me where I can put your stuff, I’ll feed you.”

  She turned and raced out of the room, and Barty followed her. He found Penelope in the kitchen, sitting near one of the corners, waiting for him.

  “I guess she picked her own spot,” Jim said.

  Barty got the bowls and put down food and water. He put the litter box in the washroom off the kitchen and showed Penelope where it was. She immediately christened it and then wandered back to eat.

  “She’s a little nuts.”

  “Takes after her daddy, I guess.”

  “I don’t think you’re nuts,” Jim said. “Maybe a little different.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it.” Barty had heard much worse in his life. He was usually able to shrug it off, but there had been times when it hurt.

  Jim opened the refrigerator and pulled out some things for salad, as well as a pasta dish. “I don’t really cook much. My mom and dad have a cook, Regina, and she makes some things for me and brings them over from their house here in town. I know it sounds really spoiled, but if she didn’t, then I’d just eat out all the
time, and she won’t hear of that. Regina has been around my family for years, and she would never let any of us starve.” He put the container in the microwave and then began cutting things up for the salad. “So what do you do for fun?”

  Barty shrugged. “I work and read a lot. Mostly papers and the various journals. I need to keep up on the latest developments. I, of course, do research, and that takes a great deal of time and effort. I think that’s what I like the most because it allows me to figure out some of the things about people that always baffle me.” He sat at one of the stools, watching Jim work and staying out of the way.

  “No. I mean for fun. My sister rides horses, or she used to. I played polo when I was a kid, but I don’t do that any longer. I didn’t really enjoy it too much.” He placed the lettuce in small bowls and added cucumber and tomato. “Sorry, I went off on myself.”

  “That’s okay, but I don’t do things like that.”

  “Don’t you play games?”

  “You mean like those time-wasting things on Facebook?” Barty shook his head.

  “Some of them are awesome. But I was thinking of video games and things like that.”

  “I didn’t play much as a kid. I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I didn’t understand how to make them, so I did other things. I can play the piano and the violin. I write a lot and I read.”

  “But don’t you do things with other people outside of work?” Jim asked, and Barty shook his head. “Then you were serious the other day about not having friends? I thought that maybe you were exaggerating a little or something.”

  “Not really. I find it hard to relate to most people.”

  Jim carried the salad to the table and got out plates, glasses, and silverware. Then he pulled the pasta out of the microwave, and the scent of tomatoes and garlic filled the room. Barty’s stomach growled a little as Jim set the casserole dish on the hot pad. He put the serving spoon in it, poured cold water from a pitcher into glasses, and then sat down.

  “There are some times that I wish I was more like everyone else.”

  “I don’t. If you were, then I never would have met you.” Jim served him a portion of pasta and then took some for himself.

  Barty picked up his fork but didn’t eat, wondering just what Jim meant by that. Nicole had said to watch him, and Jim seemed to be watching Barty in return, but he wasn’t clear on exactly what all of it meant. He was definitely leaning toward asking, but he was also afraid to find out in case all the energy and heat that seemed to be going on between them was just his imagination. This was all so confusing.

  “No, Penelope,” Barty scolded when she tried to climb in his lap. He pulled a chair away from the table, and she jumped on it and curled into a ball. “She usually sits with me when I eat. Penelope never begs or anything, but it’s part of our routine.” He hoped it was all right. Jim didn’t seem to mind, and Barty began eating his dinner.

  They were quiet as they ate. Barty wasn’t quite sure if it was the uncomfortable kind or not. Jim seemed tired and introspective. He could understand that, and it wasn’t as though Barty was particularly comfortable. He was in a strange house and was expected to spend at least a couple of nights, from what he could deduce. It had been a while since he’d slept away from home, and the last time had been on a visit with his family where he’d stayed in a hotel and hadn’t slept much at all because of all the strange noises around him.

  “Are you going to be all right here? I have a guest room made up, and it’s near my room.”

  “How many bedrooms does this house have?” Barty asked.

  “Six. I put you in one that has its own bath. Some of them share one.” Jim continued eating and seemed distracted.

  “What do you do with all this space?” Barty asked. “It’s a lot for one person.”

  “Cavernous is more like it. My grandparents loved it, and they threw great parties here and raised their family in this house. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it long-term. My sister would like to move her family here, but her husband has no interest, and she feels that since she’s family that I should just give it to her rather than selling it to her.”

  “Overenhanced sense of entitlement?” Barty asked.

  “To say the least. You’ll get a chance to meet them on Sunday if things work out. If I dared, I’d hope for some sort of incident so I would have an excuse to stay away, but then that would mean something bad had happened, and I don’t want that either. These things with my family are never particularly pleasant.”

  “Why? My family tries, but other than my sister, they don’t really understand me at all. I’m this smart person who intimidates them, and they intimidate the hell out of me.”

  “I’m going to take a page from your book. Why?” Jim asked, snickering.

  “Because they say one thing and mean something else all the time. It’s part of how people communicate—I know that. But it doesn’t help me figure out what they mean. They say things like ‘isn’t that a nice shirt’ and then look at each other in such a way to say that they think I must be colorblind to wear that. And they think I won’t notice. I do, but I don’t always know what it means, so I’m always left out. I got used to it a while ago.”

  “I understand. I get the same reactions from my family about my job. They tolerate it but never talk about it, as though it’s an embarrassment to them. They do the same thing to me with the snide undertones, so I ignore it as best I can. The only reason I’m going to this party is because of Deidre’s kids. They would miss me if I wasn’t there. They’re amazing girls, and I love them to death.”

  Barty finished up and carried his dishes to the sink. When he returned, Jim was done as well, so he took his dishes too.

  “Thanks.” Jim left the room, returned with the mail, and sat at the table to go through it quickly.

  “Why are these addressed to P. James Crawford?” Barty asked when he saw one of the labels as he sat back down.

  “James is my middle name. My first name is Pierpont.” Jim paused, and Barty put his hand over his mouth to hide his smile. “Yeah, I know. It’s a family name, and my dad insisted on it. My mother hated it and always called me Jim. Thankfully it stuck, but in school, every fall it would resurface. I thought about changing it, but now I just put everything as P. James and let it go.”

  Barty snickered.

  “I bet the kids had fun with your name as well, Bartholomew,” Jim teased.

  Barty shrugged. “I didn’t spend much time around the other kids. I moved through school much quicker than they did, and by the time I was fifteen, I was finishing high school and going on to college-level education. That was hard, because I needed a good school and there were none near my parents. I thought of going to school here and staying with Nana, but she said I needed to attend the best schools possible and I needed the scholarships I was offered. Instead, I ended up going away, alone, at sixteen. I wasn’t the only one that age, and we had extra supervision because we were still underage and all that. The other kids became friends, but I stayed on the outside as usual, and worked. When I was seventeen and Nana died, I was devastated, but the relationship with my parents had improved, thanks to Nana, and they helped me until I was an adult. It felt like she was still looking out for me.”

  “So you were twenty-three when you got your doctorate?”

  “Yes. I found out I had a gift for understanding the criminal mind, and I was able to use that to get my degree and a fellowship position that turned into a full-time faculty position at Dutton.”

  “Are you tenured?” Jim asked.

  “Not yet. But I’ve published a lot and publish more all the time. It’s one of the things I think I excel at. I like teaching my students, and I try to be understanding. But I also lay out what I expect at the beginning of the term, and I’m very specific and clear because I never like to bend the rules. If I can stick to them, then I’m being fair to everyone.”

  “I heard you the other day after I left. When you gave that girl an
exception.”

  Barty blushed. “I never know what to do at times like that. So I try to avoid such situations.”

  “I thought you were gracious and did the right thing, if that helps.” Jim put his mail aside and stood. “Why don’t you bring Penelope and come with me.”

  “Where are we going?” Barty asked even as he gathered his little girl and carried her into the other room. Jim sat on the floor in front of a huge television, and then he turned it on. “I thought we could play some games.”

  “What kind of games?”

  “Video games.” He handed Barty a plastic steering wheel. “This is an oldie but a goodie. It’s a racing game, and I’ll help you get set up. You don’t have to worry if you lose or die or anything. This is just for fun.”

  “Can’t I just watch you play?”

  “No. You’re going to play with me. I have the other controller, and we’re going to have fun.” Jim got everything set up and then helped him set up a character. “You can be whoever you want.”

  “The turtle, then, because I’m probably going to go as slow as anything.”

  “Okay.” Jim set that up and then showed him how to work the controls. Once he was done, Jim started the game, and it counted down before starting. All the other players raced ahead of him while Barty hadn’t even started. “Just go forward like I showed you and pick up speed. Stay on the track and weave around the obstacles.”

  “I’m terrible at this.” He wanted to give the controller thing to Jim, but he continued around the track. “Okay. This is kind of fun,” he admitted just as the race came to an end and he came in last. Barty handed the controller back to Jim. “I think I’m done.”

  “No. Try it again. I’ll set it to replay, and don’t be afraid to go faster. Nothing is going to happen if you crash, other than you start up again. It’s only a video game, not a real highway.”