Medium Dead

by Chris Dolley

  Brenda Steele, intrepid reporter, strode into the police station, crossed the small lobby, and headed straight for the desk sergeant.

  “Good morning,” she said, showing plenty of teeth, a winsome smile and a couple of buttons worth of cleavage. “My name’s Brenda Steele and–”

  Before she could finish a man interrupted her from behind.

  “Sorry I’m late, Miss Steele. I was stuck in traffic.”

  Brenda swiveled on her heel. The man was a stranger. Twentysomething, dark suit, clean cut, embarrassed smile.

  And he was holding an FBI badge.

  He addressed the desk sergeant. “Hi, I’m agent Mulder. Miss Steele is assisting the FBI in a missing persons investigation.”

  Agent Mulder? Brenda and the desk sergeant both stared at the badge. And then at Brian – because it had to be Brian. Who else would turn up at a police station claiming to be Agent Mulder? At least he hadn’t made himself look like David Duchovny.

  “Agent Mulder?” said the desk sergeant. A smile had insinuated its way onto his lips.

  “I know,” said Brian. “It’s a cross I bear every day. I thought of changing my name, but ... why should I? It’d be like disowning my parents.”

  ‘Brian?’ Brenda poked the thought through the ether between them. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Call me Fox,’ came the reply.

  Brenda mentally rolled her eyes.

  ‘Where have you been! I’ve been calling since yesterday.’

  Brian ignored her. “Miss Steele’s helping us with a missing person investigation. We need access to your files.”

  “Don’t you have your own files at the FBI?” asked the desk sergeant.

  “This is closer. And, believe me, time is critical.”

  The desk sergeant shrugged. “Okay, I’ll find a detective who can help.”

  Detective Sjoberg was a man in a hurry. He had five cases on his desk. All of them far more important than babysitting an FBI agent. Even if he was called Mulder.

  ‘I think you should have come as Scully,’ said Brenda via the ether.

  Sjoberg hurried them upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. He bustled them through a large open plan office, found a room they could use, logged them in to the state’s Missing and Exploited Children database and left.

  “You can access the NCIC from there, too,” he said from the door. “I’ll be next door if you need me.”

  He’d turned away and pulled the door closed before Brenda or Brian had had time to thank him.

  “Okay,” said Brian. “Bring me up to speed.”

  “Can’t you just read my mind?”

  “I can only read surface thoughts, Brenda. So, if you’re not thinking about it, I can’t hear it.”

  Brenda recounted her story. And how she tried to call Brian several times with no response.

  “What’s the point of having a phone number if you never answer?”

  “I couldn’t,” said Brian. He looked embarrassed. Which wasn’t one of his usual looks. “Every time I use magic it ... has a cost.”

  “What kind of cost?”

  “It drains me. Not too much, but if I do a lot of magic over a short time – especially the complex stuff – it can be debilitating. More so the following day. It’s like performing a strenuous activity. You feel tired at the time, but it’s not until the next day that your muscles seize up. Except with magic the pain’s worse and your brain feels like it’s been carbonated under pressure and given a good shaking. Ever had migraine?”

  “No.”

  “Well, imagine the worst headache you’ve ever had and throw in simultaneous bouts of toothache, earache, eyeball ache and nausea. And the knowledge that there’s nothing you can take to dull the pain.”

  “You can’t magic the pain away?”

  “That’s the last thing you’d want to try. Unless you’re into exploding heads. No drugs or meditation technique can help, either. We demons have a devil of a life. Now, find me some paper.”

  She rummaged in her bag, pulled out a notepad and handed it to him.

  “Do you want a pen?”

  “Not yet.”

  He tore the front sheet from the notebook and pressed it flat against the desk. “Okay, think of Sacrifice. Bring her image to the front of your mind. That’s it. Now zoom in on her face. Excellent. Hold it there.”

  His right hand moved over the paper, barely brushing its surface. A picture appeared, an almost perfect rendition of the image in Brenda’s mind. Sacrifice. He’d even captured her faraway look.

  “What do you think?” he asked. “Does that look like her? Anything need changing?”

  “It’s amazing,” said Brenda. It could have been a photograph from last night.

  “It’s magic,” said Brian.

  He fed the picture into the document scanner attached to the computer terminal and tapped away at the keyboard.

  “This might take a while,” he said. “Without a name or date we’re going to have to spread the search pretty wide. And hope Sacrifice wasn’t abducted as a baby – that would stretch the photo recognition software beyond breaking point.”

  It did take a while. Brian fed the picture into both the state system and the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. Long minutes passed. Eventually potential candidates began to appear on the screen. Brenda leaned closer for a better look. It was difficult. Some of the girls were four or five, some younger. All of them had a look of Sacrifice – around the eyes or the mouth – but none were Sacrifice. Or, at least, not that she could tell.

  Doubt. After ruling out the first ten candidates she had to go back and look at them all again. Children could change so much. And pictures could lie. The angle the picture was taken from, a chance expression – all could combine to make one person look like another and vice versa.

  But when the twelfth picture flashed on screen there was no doubt. Brenda’s voice caught in her throat. The girl’s hair was different. Her face younger. But the features, that look...

  “That’s her,” she said, pointing at the screen and backing away at the same time.

  Brian clicked on the picture. The screen filled with details. Mary Alice Cassini, aged four, abducted from a park in Stamford, Connecticut, thirteen years ago. No witnesses, no suspects.

  “What do we do now?” asked Brenda. “Visit the parents?”

  “We need to find them first. This file’s thirteen years old.”

  He typed and clicked, navigating from one screen to another faster than Brenda could keep up.

  “You’ve done this before,” said Brenda. The second the words were out of her mouth she felt stupid. Of course he’d done this before. He was a crime fighter. He’d have needed to trace thousands of people over the years. What better way to do that than hacking into the FBI?

  “Even Santa does it,” said Brian.

  “What?”

  “Santa. You don’t think he really keeps his own book on who’s been naughty or nice.”

  A new page flashed on screen. The FBI’s Naughty or Nice Child Register.

  “Do you want to see what it says about you?” asked Brian. “I can go back to any year.”

  Brenda shook her head – in disbelief. If Brian ever tired of crime fighting he had a ready-made career in television. Candid Camera with Brian – he’d make a fortune.

  “But I wouldn’t be happy, Brenda. All that attention – it’s too dangerous for us demon folk.”

  He tapped and clicked some more, tracking down both parents – they divorced two years after Mary Alice went missing. Was that significant? The mother remarried and now lived in Greenwich and the father, Frank Cassini, appeared to be living over the family store.

  Brian printed off details of both parents, then went back and printed off three pages of the investigation into Mary Alice’s abduction.

  “Now, I think we visit the father,” said Brian. “If anyone’s a strong candidate for ‘Daddy’ it has to be him.”

  Chapter Eight<
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  They drove back to Brenda’s house to drop off the car. During the drive, Brian took the opportunity to send his inner eye roving across the countryside in search of Frank Cassini.

  Brenda was intrigued. And jealous. Being able to project your sight must be like being able to fly – without the fear of gravity to send you crashing into the ground. You’d be able to soar like a bird and fly unconstrained – no seat belt, no engine noise, no ears to pop.

  “Do you follow roads?” she asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “When you’re projecting your eyes. Do you follow the roads, or cut across country like a bird?”

  “A bit of both. If I get a good bearing on where I want to go I set off fast across country, climbing to about ten thousand feet if there’s not too much cloud. But it’s easy to get lost so you need to drop down low and find a road sign occasionally.”

  She stopped at the lights and turned to watch him. She found it fascinating. The idea of having your body sitting in a car while your eyes roamed elsewhere. What would it be like? One sense telling you you’re flying, the other four filling your brain with contradictory information. If he had a brain, that is. Maybe he had several?

  Brian’s head rolled slowly to the right. Was he following his eyes as they dived out of the clouds? His head straightened, then turned sharply towards her. His eyes were unfocussed and...

  A car horn from behind informed her that the lights had changed. Reluctantly she turned her eyes back to the road and pulled away.

  “Found him!” said Brian a minute or two later. “He’s in his shop. I’ll find a quiet place nearby and wait. How long until you’re home?”

  “Two minutes tops.”

  “Excellent. We’ll set off as soon you get the car in the garage and out of sight.”

  “No,” said Brenda firmly. “I’m going to the bathroom first. I’m not going to get stuck like last time.”

  They arrived in Stamford behind a dumpster in an alley off a busy street. Once more Brenda felt like she was about to pitch forward and once more she didn’t. Not that it stopped her from pushing both arms out in front of her just in case. One day she’d get used to it.

  She took a deep breath, inhaling an exotic mix of fried food, spices and something unpleasant which hopefully was coming from the dumpster and not from something she’d stepped on.

  She checked just in case, lifting one shoe, then the other. Both clear.

  “Come on,” said Brian. “The shop’s just round the corner.”

  Brenda followed Brian out of the alley into one of those run-down, low-rent streets often seen on the edge of large towns. Small stores, lots of ethnic restaurants, large immigrant population, graffiti. And there, three doors away, was Frank Cassini’s convenience store.

  Brian handed Brenda a black wallet. “Here, take this. You’re Watson and I’m Agent Holmes, Cold Cases.”

  Brenda flipped open the wallet. It looked official – to her untrained eye. There was a badge, an authentic looking FBI logo, her picture. But the name...

  “Shouldn’t it be Agent Watson not Doctor Watson?”

  Brian waved her objection away. “He’ll never notice.”

  “Why take the risk? Why not be Agent Smith and Jones.”

  Brian looked hurt. “I am not a Smith or a Jones. I’m a Maigret or a Poirot. But if you’re really worried I’ll drop the Sherlock.” He brushed a hand over his FBI badge. “There, I’m now Hercule Holmes. Do you think I should add a moustache?”

  Brenda rolled her eyes. If she ever got through this day...

  They stopped outside the convenience store and looked in the window. Four narrow aisles of packed shelves with one Frank Cassini – Brenda recognized him from his picture – sitting behind a single till. He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d imprison his child and kill her, but then, who did? According to his file he was thirty-nine and five ten. He’d filled out some over the last thirteen years, and his once-black, curly hair was now flecked with grey and receding.

  “Okay,” said Brian, putting on a Belgian accent. “The game, she is afoot.”

  They went inside. The store wasn’t busy. There were a couple of women browsing in the far aisles. Brian ambled over to the till and flashed his badge while Brenda hung back and tried to exude an aura of sensible law enforcement.

  “Can we have a word?” said Brian, ditching his Belgian accent in favor of a soft southern drawl. “It’s about Mary Alice.”

  “Have you found her?”

  Brenda wasn’t sure if she sensed hope in Frank Cassini’s voice or fear. He was nervous – that was obvious – the second Brian flashed his badge the man’s breath caught and his eyes darted towards the door.

  “Not yet,” said Brian. “Can we talk in private?”

  Frank Cassini called to an assistant in the back room and asked her to take his place at the check out. She didn’t look happy about it. She glared at Frank.

  “It’s nearly eleven,” she said.

  “I know,” said Frank. “I won’t be long.”

  Brenda hung back as Frank led Brian into the back of the store. She watched the assistant take her seat behind the till. She was in her early thirties, dark haired, and thoroughly pissed off. Why? It wasn’t as though the store was busy.

  Brenda caught up with Brian, who’d been shown into a small cluttered room at the back – a cross between a kitchen and a stock room. It had a sink, a table, a couple of chairs and piles of crates and boxes.

  “Sorry about the mess,” said Frank, dusting off one of chairs.

  “About Mary Alice,” said Brian. “Did she have many friends?”

  Brian’s delivery was slower and more considered than his usual quick fire banter. Maybe he was taking his time while he read the man’s mind? Or maybe this was Brian playing good cop?

  “What’s this all about? Are you re-opening the case?”

  “We’re from Cold Cases, Mr. Cassini. Your daughter’s is one that we’re considering re-investigating. Did she have many friends?”

  Cassini looked confused, glancing from Brian to Brenda and back again. But he answered the question.

  “Yes, she had lots of friends.”

  “Friends from school?”

  “From kindergarten. And from the neighborhood. We lived in Southfield then.”

  “You moved house?”

  “Yes. Susan and I. My wife. My ex-wife. We got divorced ten years ago. She – we – never got over losing Mary Alice. I live over the store now.”

  “On your own?”

  “Yes.”

  His reply was fast. And he glanced towards the door. Was he living with his assistant? Miss Marple would have known. She’d have been reminded of someone she knew from St. Mary Mead. But Brenda wasn’t Miss Marple. She was no expert at reading body language. She hadn’t spent a lifetime observing others.

  But she could learn. And she would learn. If she wasn’t so nervous, this would be fun. Her very first interview with a suspect. It was like stepping inside the pages of a book.

  Brian switched his attention to the piles of boxes lining the room. “Don’t you have a cellar?”

  “No.”

  Brian looked puzzled. “I thought all these buildings had cellars.”

  “No.”

  Cassini didn’t look fazed by the question. Brenda wondered what Brian was picking up from his thoughts. Was Frank picturing Mary Alice imprisoned in her windowless room?

  “Did your old house in Southfield have a cellar?”

  This time there was a reaction.

  “No! Why are you asking about cellars? Have you found something?”

  “We’re following up on a lead, Mr. Cassini. There are similarities with another case we’re working on where a girl was abducted. That girl was held captive in a windowless room.”

  Brian paused and watched Cassini, who swallowed hard.

  “What happened to the other girl? Is she alive?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say, but do you
know of any cellars or windowless rooms? In a neighbor’s house maybe? Or a friend of the family? An old workplace, or a cabin you took your family to?”

  “No.”

  His answer was quick. Very quick. Brenda couldn’t work him out. Was he a grieving father struggling to keep his emotions in check? Or Daddy, the child murderer trying to blot out what he’d done? Brenda couldn’t tell. And why did he keep checking his watch?

  “Sacrifice,” said Brian – completely out of the blue.

  Frank Cassini looked confused. But not shocked.

  “Pardon?” he said.

  “Sorry, I was thinking aloud. Thinking of all the sacrifices that parents make for their children. I expect you made sacrifices too.”

  “Yes.”

  Now he was looking even more impatient and glancing towards the door.

  “What happens at eleven?” asked Brian.

  Frank’s eyes widened. An instant of startled rabbit fear and then it was gone.

  “Nothing,” he said, his face softening into a smile. “She’s worried about her coffee break, that’s all.”

  Brian slapped his hands on his thighs and rose from his chair. “Thank you, Mr. Cassini. That’ll be all for now.”

  “Well?” asked Brenda the moment they’d left the store.

  “Walk with me,” said Brian.

  They headed back to the alley.

  “Something’s wrong back there,” said Brian. “I don’t know what, but it’s going to happen at eleven.”

  “Couldn’t you read his thoughts?”

  “It doesn’t work every time. It’s easiest when people are calm and concentrating – like when I ask you to think aloud. But when people are nervous, or distracted, their thoughts can be all over the place – nothing more than a jumble of scrambled words and images.”

  “You didn’t get anything?”

  “I got snippets, but nothing concrete. My badge panicked him. Really panicked him. But it didn’t appear related to Mary Alice. As soon as I mentioned her name – a new set of thoughts swirled in. Flashbacks, disjointed memories, images of his daughter. But none of her being locked in a cellar or abused. Then he started to panic again – he thought we’d found her body. But whether that was the natural fear of a parent or the guilty fear of a murderer, I couldn’t tell. And from then on his brain was all over the place. I didn’t even get a reaction when I said ‘Sacrifice.’ The only constant was a wish for us to be gone and out of the shop as soon as possible. That and the number eleven. Something is going to happen at eleven o’clock and it’s scaring the crap out of him.”