PsyCop 1: Among the Living

by Jordan Castillo Price

  “My Papa’d want me to be a real cop.”

  I supposed I could’ve taken offense at the implication that I wasn’t one, but maybe I secretly agreed with her. “Don’t worry about that now,” I said. “Get some sleep.” I stood up to scrounge a blanket off my own bed while Marks managed to open out the futon with Lisa still on it.

  Once we’d gotten her settled, Marks headed toward my bedroom. I followed him and paused in the doorway, watching him loosen his tie. “I don’t think you should stay,” I whispered.

  “Why not?”

  I glanced back toward the living room. “I’m not, um. Y’know.”

  “What?”

  I crossed my arms and sighed, and hated that he was going to make me say it. “Out.”

  He smirked. “Not to anyone? You don’t strike me as a virgin.”

  “Don’t be stupid. You’re a cop, too.”

  Marks eased over to me a hell of a lot more gracefully than someone his size had the right to. “I don’t show up at the squad house in a pink tutu, no. But my family? My friends? My partner? I’m not gonna waste my time and energy playing games with them.”

  I looked back at Lisa, wondering if she was asleep or just zoning out with her eyes shut. “I only met her a couple of days ago,” I said in my own lame defense. That was my excuse for not telling my partner. Family and friends? That was simple. I didn’t have any.

  Marks pulled a business card from the breast pocket of his suitcoat and tucked it down the collar of my shirt. He pressed his lips against my ear and spoke softly, his voice a low buzz. “Call me on my cell if you need anything.” His tongue traced the outline of my ear and then darted inside to draw a long shiver out of me. “Anything.”

  I stared at the kitchen doorway long after Marks was gone.

  Chapter 8

  I swabbed the shower out before Lisa woke up. Just because my whole apartment’s white doesn’t mean I’m a clean freak or anything, and I’d started noticing dust bunnies, clumps of hair, and fingerprints that would send a woman running for the Formula 409.

  “I think my eyeball is gonna fall out.”

  I turned to find Lisa leaning against the doorframe of the tiny bathroom, picking a tangle out of her hair.

  “Yeah. I get that, too.” I turned on the hot tap and ran water into the tub. “A shower and a couple of aspirin will help. A little.”

  Lisa stared down at her nails. “I feel like I should ask you if I did anything stupid last night, except I actually remember it all.”

  I sat on the edge of the clawfoot tub and played with the white vinyl shower curtain that hung from an oval track suspended from the ceiling. I noticed some mildew on the bottom and tried to hide it in one of the folds.

  “Who was that other detective? He your new partner?”

  “Temporarily. He works for another precinct and he’s already got a partner.”

  “That’s too bad. He seemed like a good cop.”

  I found a black T-shirt in my closet that I’d accidentally bought a size too large and never worn, and tossed it into the bathroom while averting my eyes. Then I brewed some double-strong coffee and wondered if Lisa would have the stomach for chicken pot pies for breakfast. Probably not. We’d need to eat out.

  Lisa emerged from the steamy bathroom with the end of a tight braid pinched between her fingers. My T-shirt was stretched taut on her, making her seem chestier than she’d looked in a suit. “Got a rubber band?”

  “Um…doorknob.”

  Lisa found a band and wrapped it around the end of her braid.

  “How’s your power today?” I asked her.

  “I dunno.” She sat on the second stool and took the cup of black coffee I handed her. “I think it’s coming back. Answers pop into my mind when I ask questions, but I don’t feel so sure of them.”

  “It comes back gradually,” I said. “We’re people. You can’t turn us on and off like TV sets.”

  Lisa sipped her coffee and winced. “You really gotta clean out your coffee pot.”

  “Put some cream in there, you won’t notice it so much.” Lisa attempted to gag some coffee down while I slid a couple of aspirin her way. “If you want, I can take you somewhere with decent coffee.”

  Lisa peered at me suspiciously.

  “Where the second murder victim just happened to be hanging out the night of his death,” I added.

  Lisa’s eyes went wide. “You can’t do that, Vic. You’ll get in trouble bringing me in on the case while I’m suspended.”

  “But we’re just going out for a little coffee,” I protested.

  Lisa looked into her cup. “The second crime scene—all covered with mirrors like the first one?”

  I nodded.

  “Those poor boys,” she said, getting up to dump her coffee into the sink. That seemed like an odd thing to say, considering that they were probably about her age, but I didn’t remark on it.

  A kid with a pierced eyebrow was working the counter and I was relieved that I didn’t have to deal with the gum-chewing girl who’d seen me talking with the dead guy. I got a latte and a chocolate chip bagel while Lisa just ordered a black coffee, extra tall. “Let’s sit over here,” I said, carrying our coffees to a table while balancing my bagel in the crook of my arm. I gestured toward a table in front with a tilt of my head. “That’s where the second victim supposedly had chai with Darth Vader.”

  “And a dead witness told you this,” said Lisa. She peeled off the lid and blew on her coffee. “Dead guys ever lie?”

  “Why don’t I ask you, Miss sí-no. Do dead guys ever lie?”

  Lisa grinned. “Yes.”

  “And they get their stories all mixed up, too,” I told her. “They’re just as thick as the living. Sometimes worse, since they get stuck in these crazy ruts and keep repeating themselves.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You hear any dead people talking now?”

  I shifted my focus but the room felt quiet. “Not now. But this is a new building. The older ones almost always have someone hanging around. It’s worse at night.”

  “No wonder you take Auracel. Once I took that pill and the sí-no was gone, I felt kinda lonely. I couldn’t figure out why you’d want to get rid of your power—unless it stopped you from doing your job. But I guess it’s pretty different from mine.”

  “And how could you ever think that a talent like sí-no would stop you from doing yours? You put yourself in some hot water by applying to be a PsyCop. If you’d just stayed in the regular force, you’d probably make detective with the first opening. What were you thinking?”

  Lisa slouched against the back of her chair. “The sí-no told me to. I saw the job posted in the breakroom, with about a hundred others. PsyCops, they’re still pretty novel in New Mexico. ‘Should I apply for that job?’ I asked myself. Si.”

  The sí-no told me to. The courts would have a field day with that explanation.

  My cell phone rang—Marks. “Carolyn and I are at the Twelfth putting our notes together, and it looks like at least three more witnesses who saw the suspect would identify him differently.”

  “Hold on,” I said. I hit the mute button on my phone and turned to Lisa. “Did the same person murder both Blakewood and Carson?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is he doing something to disguise his appearance?”

  “No.”

  I un-muted my phone. “Something’s definitely up with the killer,” I said, “but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.”

  “I think it warrants some serious discussion over dinner tonight. Say eight o’clock? Cottonwood Lounge.”

  I stared hard at my phone. The restaurant was fancy enough that I could hardly mistake the invitation for anything but a date. And it was nowhere near either of our precincts. Marks was persistent, I’d give him that. “Um…okay. Sure.”

  “See you then,” he purred, and the noise of his line cut off.

  I realized Lisa was staring at me. “Ask me,” she said.

  “H
uh?”

  “You want to ask me a sí-no. I can tell.”

  I drummed my fingers on the faux-marble tabletop. “Is Marks…” I started, and then wondered how to phrase my question. The incriminating part seemed to be out of the bag with just that single word—his name. “Is he just some kind of player, messing with my head?”

  “No.” Lisa blushed a little and turned her attention toward the remainder of her coffee. I wondered if what I’d just done counted as “coming out” to my partner. Lisa was no dummy, so I suspected that was a “yes.”

  * * *

  I dropped Lisa off at her apartment and went back to my desk at the Fifth, figuring I’d hunt-and-peck my way through what little I had to report while I counted down the minutes until eight p.m.

  I’d been there a couple of hours when my phone buzzed and Betty the receptionist’s voice came through. “Detective Bayne?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Sergeant Warwick wants to see you.”

  Betty’d been at the station for something like forty years. She was the main reason they still used the same phone system they’d installed in the early eighties. But I gave her credit. She could take the most mundane sentence and, with the addition of a well-placed but subtle inflection, let you know exactly what was going on.

  In this case, the way she lingered over the word “see” implied that I was in some kind of deep shit.

  Warwick knew about me and Marks. That was all I could figure. I could see it now, a great big scandal. Two members of the already-controversial Paranormal Investigation Unit fired in a shocking gay sex scandal—details at eleven.

  Warwick stood up and loomed over his desk as I came in. I closed the door behind me so fewer desk cops could hear me getting reamed. “You want to tell me what you were doing meeting with Gutierrez earlier today?” he demanded.

  A small, giddy part of me wanted to tell him that I was fucking her. But then I thought of Marks, strong enough to tell his inner circle who he actually was, and I thought better of it. Besides, how could I do that to Lisa’s reputation?

  “We were discussing anti-psyactives,” I told him, figuring that even Carolyn the lie detector wouldn’t be able to find anything wrong with that explanation.

  Warwick frowned, sure that I wasn’t being truthful, but unable to discount what I’d said without challenging me. “You are not to discuss the case with her,” he warned me. “She’s suspended. And if I find out you’re leaking evidence to her, that’s where your ass is gonna be, too.”

  “Yes, sir.” I suspect that legally he couldn’t tell me not to see her on my own time. But it seemed that he thought if he glared at me hard enough, I would infer it.

  Warwick picked up his phone and told Betty to get his wife on the line—his way of dismissing me without giving me the courtesy of saying it aloud. Maybe most NPs really think that every Psych is a mind reader, but Warwick was taking it that one extra step just to be an ass.

  Chapter 9

  I hoped that buying a new jacket at SaverPlus Department Store wouldn’t mark me as a complete and utter loser for the rest of my life, but I’d ended up working until 6:45 and needed to get something fast. An ancient salesman who smelled like cigars kept yammering on about how I needed a 39 long, an unusual size, but he thought he might have it in navy. I grabbed a 40 regular in black and headed for the cashier while he was still rummaging around.

  I pulled the tags off in the car while I cursed at the GPS for taking me through the most congested six-way intersection in the city. I popped open my glove box and searched for a comb each time the traffic lurched to a fitful stop. Not that I’d ever actually put a comb in there. But it seemed like it’d be a likely place to keep one.

  When I got to the Cottonwood Lounge, I found Marks sitting at the tastefully set table, sipping a glass of dark red wine like he didn’t even notice I was fifteen minutes late. “I, um…traffic was lousy.”

  He shook his head from side to side like I’d said something funny. “Wine?”

  “Wine? Um, no.” I pointed to my head. “Doesn’t agree with me.”

  “Really?”

  I sensed that he wanted me to give him some kind of Psych story to gnaw on, but I just wasn’t up for it. “Warwick laid into me for having contact with Gutierrez.”

  I thought he would ask me how Warwick knew, but instead he just shrugged and drained his glass. “And you’re so worried about what Warwick thinks.”

  “He is my boss.”

  “How many years?”

  I counted back, just to be sure. “Twelve.”

  “You were in one of the original three PsyCop units when the whole thing was hardly more than a crazy experiment. Your hit rate was the only thing that kept the program alive, especially after that witchhunt exposé on the psychic gambling ring that Channel 2 aired. You think he doesn’t remember that?”

  I sipped my ice water and thought back. Those things had all happened. But I didn’t recall anyone ever acting like they were anything special.

  Marks leaned forward and his casual demeanor fell away. Intensity blazed in his dark eyes, and he grasped my forearm from across the table. “We’re gonna nail this bastard. Me and you. Carolyn and Lisa. And then see what kind of respect you command.”

  I considered Marks. It was easy enough for him to be confident. This case was like any other to him: get evidence, put evidence together, solve case. But me? My evidence collection was on the fritz and it was really starting to piss me off.

  Over dinner I managed to get marinara sauce on my new blazer, though it left less of a telltale mark than the mayonnaise had on my old one. But at least I found Marks to be pretty good company—a lot easier to talk to than other men I’d attempted to date. There’d been the record store clerk who got squeamish when he found out I carried a gun. And the hairdresser who couldn’t stop making wisecracks about my handcuffs. But Marks just commented on the food and gave me sultry looks between every bite he took. I could handle that.

  I followed him back to his place, a small second-floor condo on the lake. It looked more lived-in than the architect’s duplex, but just about as expensive. A phantom cat sat on his radiator, tail lashing back and forth, but other than that we were alone.

  “It’s good,” I said, happy to get out of that new sportcoat. I threw it over the arm of his burgundy leather couch. “No one here but us.”

  Marks grinned as if he’d been waiting for me to say something spooky all night. He loosened his tie like he was doing a striptease, then pulled it off and let it fall in a silk heap on top of my jacket. I was relieved that he wasn’t compulsively neat. “C’mere,” he said. He put his arm around me, led me to a floor-to-ceiling window and pulled open a set of vertical blinds.

  The lake spread out before us, tiny lights flashing here or there where a boat floated at anchor, and the yellow grids of high rise windows glowing in my peripheral vision. I’m not usually one to go out of my way to see the sights, but the view from Marks’ window was pretty nice. “Wow.”

  His hands slipped around my middle as I said it, and my breath hitched as he pulled my shirt from my waistband. I felt his palms glide over my bare stomach and I shivered as he fit himself to the curve of my back, his breath warm on my neck.

  I tried to turn around and face him, but he had me spread up against the plate glass window and there was no way I’d be able to move unless he let me. He pressed into me harder, grazing the nape of my neck with his teeth as his hands slid higher. His fingers closed over my nipples and he took them gently, just rolling them, rolling, rolling, as his teeth combed my neck and the bulge of his cock rubbed against the back of my pants.

  I reached back over my shoulder with one hand to see if I could touch him, stroke him, anywhere. But I was splayed like a bug on the glass and couldn’t do anything but writhe while Marks’ hands played over my chest and his mouth seared tingling trails over my neck. Eventually I stopped trying and just pressed my cheek into the window, my breath fogging the lake skyline unti
l it took on the spectral look of the dead world that dogged my existence.

  Marks teased my nipples until they were stiff and then squeezed them harder—just a little—until I groaned aloud and pushed my ass back against him. He pressed his teeth into me and held me there by my neck while his hands slid downward and made short work of my fly. My slacks pooled around my ankles and my cock stood out in my boxer briefs, the tip butting against the cool glass through the thin fabric.

  Once my pants were off, Marks’ hands slid up my sides, along my ribs. They crossed themselves over my chest as he pressed himself into my back from chin to thigh. “Just stay there,” he said, his voice low and rough. “I want to get you off.”

  Had he actually said that? Had anyone ever said that to me before? Ever? Another of my breaths bloomed against the window as Marks dropped to his knees behind me and took the waistband of my underwear between his teeth. My damp fingertips squeaked at the glass, searching for something to grasp, while Marks’ goatee whispered across the skin of my bare ass as he tugged my underwear down. The briefs got caught over my hard-on, which was now sticking up at an angle, and he nibbled around the plane of my hip and the bony crest of my pelvis as he worked at undressing me. My cock snapped free and the glass was colder than I thought it would be, though maybe the smear of precome I was painting there was giving me a chill.

  His head dipped low as he wedged it under my butt and pressed his lips against my inner thigh, trailing his hot tongue in slow swashes that inched higher and higher. My legs trembled as I stepped out of the underwear and spread my feet, the length of my cock now forced vertically between my belly and the glass that was no longer cold; the heat of my body had warmed it.

  Marks’ warm, damp breath enveloped the back of my balls as he sighed, and then his tongue was there, teasing at them as they shifted inside my scrotum, which wrinkled at the touch of his mouth. He kissed them and laved them and bathed them with his tongue, and all the while I jammed my cock against his window, squeaking it up, then down, and wishing there was something warm or wet or fleshy against it instead of a pane of hard, smooth glass.