PsyCop 6: GhosTV

by Jordan Castillo Price

  “Drop it,” the handler said, quietly, even though there was nothing to drop. The dog touched its ass down to the flooring, then stood right back up again, gave a piercing whine, and started digging like it was trying to put a hole right through the linoleum.

  The handler looked to the woman with the clipboard for guidance.

  She blanched, pulled out her two-way, and said, “Code sierra bravo at Terminal 2.” Those weren’t police codes. I would’ve recognized those.

  Indiscernible words crackled back. She glanced at us, then looked away fast. “Clearance nine. Yes. Over.”

  The tension between the guards was thicker than day-old coffee.

  They must have all understood the static—and they seemed to be communicating solely with their eyes. The big guy positioned himself between Jacob and the door to the terminal and said, “Sorry for the inconvenience. We’ll need you to step in back. The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll get you on board.”

  Jacob pitched his voice low and casual. And he didn’t fool any of us.

  “Start what?”

  “It’s procedure,” said the big guard. “Not you,” he glanced at Jacob’s badge, “Detective Marks. But him.” He nodded at me.

  “This way,” the guard with the clipboard told me. When I moved to follow her—because what else could I do?—the dog strained toward me and started doing a tapdance. The click of its claws on the floor sounded like a high-powered nail gun sealing my coffin.

  “Listen,” I whispered to her, “I must’ve picked up some kind of smell in the evidence room.”

  She glanced at me, but didn’t offer any words of encouragement.

  “I’m a PsyCop too,” I went on. “I’ve got a card. If I show you my card, can I go catch my flight?”

  “Before you do anything,” Jacob was saying, “let me call my sergeant and see if we can straighten this out.”

  I heard the big guy tell him, “It’s procedure…” as the woman led me through a thick metal door into a windowless office with more doors on three sides. The walls were blue. My scalp began to prickle with sweat.

  Here I’d been worrying about ghosts at the airport. Who knew I’d be revisiting Camp Hell at the security station?

  “Place your weapon and your cell phone in this locker,” the guard told me. I didn’t want to, but what else was I gonna do, shoot her and then call an ambulance? “A security specialist will meet with you in room three. Step in, remove your clothing, and place it in the marked tray.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “It’s procedure.”

  “You can’t strip-search me,” I said. But a sick feeling in my gut told me they damn well could—because of the Patriot Act, and Terror Level Orange. Because of that fucking dancing dog.

  If I’d thought it would help me to fall to my knees and implore the guard, in the name of everything that’s right and good—mom, baseball and apple pie—to take a few steps back and let me out of that damn room…I would’ve done it. In half a second. But that look in her eye, flat, closed-down—I’d seen that look too many times to count on the faces of the nameless, rotating orderlies at Heliotrope Station.

  Nothing personal, man. Just doing my job.

  The panic attack had Heliotrope Station all over it, no doubt, but the thought of being strip-searched threw the panic right off the charts.

  The notion that had my uvula quivering and my gut clenched up like it’d just taken a sucker punch was this: I can’t deal with you strangers seeing me naked.

  “Non-compliance is a federal offense,” the guard told me.

  “I need to call my lawyer.” I didn’t have a lawyer, but the Fifth Precinct had one, didn’t they? I’d call Sergeant Warwick, that’s what I’d do.

  And he’d figure it out.

  “Look,” she said in a hushed voice. “We’re being videotaped. If you have something to declare, do it now. It’ll all go faster if you start cooperating—and maybe we can even get you on the next flight.”

  “But I’m not not-cooperating. I don’t have anything on me.”

  “Put your sidearm and your phone in the locker. Please.” I flipped open the phone and hoped my panicky brain hadn’t scrambled the location of my memory-dials.

  “Detective,” the guard said, “if you do that, then procedure dictates we physically restrain you. Save us—and yourself—the embarrassment. The quicker we search you, the quicker you’re out of here.” Physically restrain? I’d thought I was panicked before, but now I actually couldn’t have told you Warwick’s memory dial—or my own phone number, for that matter.

  My hand was shaking when I placed my phone in the locker. Great.

  I’m sure that made me look totally innocent. While I wasn’t so crazy about putting my Glock away, I knew the chances of me getting shot by security (and their “procedure”) had to be less if I was unarmed.

  The guard showed me to a room. My brain was in overdrive trying to find Camp Hell connections—blue wall…blue wall…blue wall—but the room smelled different, felt different, which kept me from totally losing it. I heard Stefan’s voice in my head, counting me down, calm and relaxed, deep and melodic, reassuring me that I was in the present, and Krimski couldn’t hurt me. And I knew it was bad if I was dredging up memories of goddamn Stefan for comfort.

  “A federal agent has been summoned,” the guard told me, “and there won’t be any female guards present.”

  And that was supposed to make me feel better?

  Fuck.

  Chapter 7

  There was a built-in bench along one wall of the windowless room, and that was it. Not even a hook to hang my clothes. Even though my shirt was stuck to my back with sweat, I left my jacket on, sat down on the bench and jammed my face between my knees. The little black motes dancing at the corners of my vision didn’t subside, but they did stop swarming toward the center.

  A big part of me wanted to just go along with the airport guards, because I’d survived this long by going with the flow, letting my body be incarcerated, sleep-starved and drugged, but not my mind, never my mind. What’re they gonna see? A skinny naked guy. So fucking what?

  That’s how I tried to talk myself into complying with them. Only I wasn’t twenty-three anymore. And I just couldn’t do it.

  Time expanded for me. I could’ve been sitting there for hours with my head between my knees. Days. Weeks. Only some small part of my brain, some bundle of neurons that still had a sketchy sense of temporal reality, told me it was more like minutes.

  There was a tap on the door. I looked at it, baffled. Someone was knocking? Worse—it was a “shave and a haircut” knock. I stared at the sturdy metal doorknob—sure that it was just some kind of fucked-up coincidence, that my battered brain had heard it wrong—and I waited for it.

  Two bits.

  The doorknob turned.

  A man in sunglasses and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up let himself in. At first I figured they’d dragged some pothead out of line and accidentally stuffed him in the same room with me. Then he slid his mirrored shades down his nose, and I recognized his eyes. Con Dreyfuss, the FPMP’s head honcho of the Midwest.

  “I wondered if you’d actually strip or not.” He plunked down on the bench beside me, dug a small bottle of water out of his pocket and offered it to me.

  I stared at it like he was handing me a live snake. “Who’re you supposed to be? The Unabomber?”

  “Whoa. It takes a guy with major cajones to say the word ‘bomb’ at an airport. But both you and I know you’re a lot pluckier than you let on.”

  “How’d you get here so fast?”

  “I’d tell you…but then I’d have to kill you.” He said it with a big, cheesy smile…which didn’t really reassure me. “Listen, Bayne, you’ve had a few months to read up on exorcisms. Tell me—how’s it going?”

  “It’s going.”

  “Uh-huh. I thought as much.” Dreyfuss peeled off his wraparound shades and dangled them between his bent knees. “The HVA
C system is still on the fritz in my office. Cold spots. I’m thinking that maybe now that you’ve brushed up on your medium skills, you could convince the causes of said cold spots to vamoose.”

  “You can’t talk to them. They’re repeaters.”

  Behind Dreyfuss’ easy smile, his eyes grew hungry. I recognized that look from Jacob, who got very still the minute I started talking ghost, in hopes of not spooking me out of finishing my thought. When Dreyfuss saw I had nothing more to say, he waved the water bottle at me, as if maybe I’d somehow managed to not see it. I ignored it.

  He shrugged, cracked the seal, and downed it in a few pulls. Then he said, “You’re pretty calm, cool and collected for a guy who’s about to have some stranger rooting around for drugs in his rectum.”

  “Haven’t you heard? I’m a faggot. I get off on that kind of thing.”

  “I can dig it—when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” I stared at a spot on the wall.

  “You know your plane’s boarding right now,” he said, “right?” I’ve never ground my molars, but I was tempted to start. I planted my elbows on my knees and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. Ahh. “What is it you want, anyway?”

  “Just making sure you’ve got a good overview of the situation. That right now, you’re stuck here in the bowels of Terminal 2—while who-knows-what is happening to your friend out in California.” I stopped pressing on my eyes and glanced sideways at Dreyfuss.

  When the sparklies dissipated, there he was, looking at me. Dead serious now. I said, “What do you know about Lisa?”

  “Not much. The western edge of my territory is the Nebraska border, remember? But Lisa was a Chicago girl…if only for a couple of weeks.”

  “Look up your FPMP buddies in the company’s California directory.

  I’m sure they’ll be happy to score some points by filling you in.”

  “They’ve got their hands full with the universities out there trying to ban telepaths from qualifying for scholarships. What do they care about a single precog who isn’t even a California resident?” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice. “Especially if none of her paperwork happens to mention the fact that she’s practically omniscient?” On one hand, I suspected he was just trying to scare me by acknowledging how powerful Lisa’s little si-no actually was. On the other, it was working. “So why’re you here?”

  He set the empty water bottle on the seat between us, then propped his elbows on his knees, mirroring me, and laced his fingers together.

  His nails looked just as chewed as they had in February. “When someone goes missing, the chance of finding them grows exponentially more improbable each and every day that passes. Lisa’s three days gone. Her roommate’s been AWOL for a week.”

  The thing with missing adults is that unless there’s some obvious clue, like a bloody candlestick in the conservatory, law enforcement needs to go with the theory that they’ve up and left on their own accord. Cold feet before the wedding, a secret rendezvous with an online fling, the sudden urge to see the Grand Canyon. People do all kinds of crazy shit. Some adults are considered lower risk for ditching their lives than others. People with children. People with steady jobs.

  People in loving relationships.

  I had no idea what the roommate’s deal was, but Lisa was single and childless, and her job status was vague.

  Even worse, she’d been struggling hard with the meaning of life. That might sound existential, but for a Psych, it ranks in importance with all the other big pieces of the identity puzzle: job, friends, home, kids, and whatever else keeps people from jumping off bridges.

  Here’s where most people whose loved ones are gone say, “But I know them. They wouldn’t have left without telling anyone. It’s just not like them.”

  We cops hear it all the time. And after the first few missing people are found on the wrong end of a drinking binge, you can’t help but feel skeptical about how well anyone really knows anyone else.

  The thing was, I did know Lisa. And I knew that she was probably the most grounded person I’d ever met, and she was a cop. A good one. She had enough backbone to tell people to leave her alone if she needed space to think, something I’d experienced personally, so there was no reason for her to slip off in the middle of the night.

  Unless she got sucked into something trying to bail her roommate out of trouble.

  And what about her email account?

  It might not be a bloody candlestick, but it was reason enough for me to be worried.

  “I was hoping you might work with me on this,” Dreyfuss said, “but you’ve always had a chip on your shoulder when it comes to the FPMP that I’ve never been able to figure.”

  “Chip on my shoulder? Try a chip in my cell phone. I never signed up for a party line.”

  “We’re tapping everyone’s phone. That’s like being pissed-off ’cos we’re breathing your air. Don’t take it so personally.” Color me paranoid, but I took my phone tap very personally. And besides, how was it that I happened to end up in the strip-search room to begin with? I didn’t have anything on me other than the gun, which I’d been cleared to carry. Normally I would have figured a bribe passed hands. But how do you bribe a dog? Unless….

  “Animal communicator.” I said it without unclenching my teeth, but it was perfectly understandable.

  “Bravo. You think it’s all about the level-five talent, but you really don’t give yourself enough credit for your deductive reasoning. Which is why you should throw your lot in with me and really exploit your full potential. The Army’s not the only government agency where you can ‘be all that you can be.’ I’m great with Psychs.” The very last thing I wanted to be was exploited. “Screw you.”

  “Firm stance. I admire your negotiating skills, really, I do. But right now, do you honestly think you have enough time to go back and forth with me on this?”

  The clock was ticking, and we both knew it. “You can only keep me here so long.”

  “Now you’re making me out to be the bad guy. Look, as soon as we’re done with our chitchat, you’re free to go.” He pushed up the sleeve of his sweatshirt and glanced at his watch. “Your problem isn’t me—it’s the appalling lack of airline service at the Santa Barbara airport.

  At this point, you’ll be wandering around all night at some terminal waiting for your connecting flight. I thought you might be interested in a route that was a little more direct.”

  I said, “You can’t fly direct from Chicago to Santa Barbara.”

  “Not commercially. No.”

  “You’re saying you can make that happen.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  Did I want to tell him to go shove his chartered flight up his ass? Sure.

  But my gut was telling me I needed to find Lisa before her trail got any colder, and my need for speed trumped my loathing and distrust of Dreyfuss. “How do I know my flight doesn’t get diverted to Area 51, where all the good Psychs go home to die?”

  “You’re mixing your life up with the X-Files. Don’t worry. I want you back so you can help me clean up my office, remember?”

  “And that’s all I’d owe you in return. An exorcism.”

  “Yes. Fine. If you need to be so formal about it—that’s our agreement.

  I fly you to Santa Barbara right now, and in return you owe me an exorcism. Does that sound kosher to you?”

  I hated it when Constantine Dreyfuss made sense. I glared at him. It seemed to me as if I should have been able to stack up my options and choose the best one, but my brain was looping around in “holy hell, I’m locked in a room” mode and nothing was particularly obvious to me except the desire to get out.

  “I can tell you’re right on the fence,” he said, “so I’ll sweeten the pot.

  I can’t tell you what the bonus would be, but I guarantee you, it’ll be worth your while.”

  So now he was resorting to breakfast cereal tactics with a “secret prize” at the bottom of the box. I don’t
know if he’d actually needed to go that far, since there’s only so long I can deal with a locked room, but it was good to know my hard-won suspicion was finally paying off. “I guess,” I said as grudgingly as possible.

  He stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

  Great. Now I had to touch him. At least I wasn’t naked. I shook his hand, and said, “Deal.” His palm wasn’t moist or anything, but I still felt like wiping my hand on my pant leg afterward.

  When we emerged from the dreaded back room, the terminal security had a new group of travelers in it chasing after their baskets of watches, wallets and spare change, and then struggling into their shoes. The woman who returned my gun and my phone wouldn’t meet my eye, and the guards around the VIP door all stood ramrod straight, and their faces were professionally blank. A dozen yards away, Jacob was on his cell phone, pacing like he was just about ready to snap. A bunch of emotions played over his face when he saw me come through the door behind Dreyfuss: relief, surprise...worry.

  The guards exchanged glances as he stormed past them and up to Dreyfuss and me. Maybe they were wondering if they were supposed to stop him. Probably they all hoped it was out of their jurisdiction.

  “Detective Marks,” Dreyfuss called out cheerfully. “Con Dreyfuss.

  Pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

  He held out his hand for a shake. Jacob planted his hands on his hips and ignored it. And his jacket rode open and flashed the front edge of his holster. “You wouldn’t happen to know why a drug dog just went apeshit over my partner, would you?”

  “What’re you suggesting? That I had an invisible agent run over and plant something on Detective Bayne? Ha ha! That’d be a good trick, wouldn’t it?” He winked at me. How sleazy. “I’ve known a motley group of Psychs in my day, unfortunately I’ve never met anyone who could turn themselves invisible—and the amount of energy it would take a telekinetic to pull that trick from across the room would probably send his brains leaking out his ears.”