Touch of the White Tiger

by Julie Beard

  That’s one good thing about compubots. They didn’t seem to understand anything about guilt or resentment. Their interactions were refreshingly straightforward.

  With that thought in mind, I went into the living room and found Jimmy at the window.

  “How’s it going? All quiet on the northern front?”

  “Shhhh!” he hissed. “Get down! Get down!”

  He waved downward so emphatically that I dropped into a squat. “What is it?” I demanded sotto voce.

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” he rasped, rubbing a hand nervously over his perspiring upper lip. He was in a real tizzy. Bogie never perspired. Jimmy must have an upgraded anatospheric program. “This…this…this hooded young man. I’ve seen him before.”

  “A hooded man?”

  “Yes, it’s as if he’s trying to hide his identity.”

  “Maybe he’s making a fashion statement.” I started to rise.

  “Get down! Get down!”

  I dropped on my knees without thinking, then took a deep breath. “Jimmy, I’m going into the other room now. Don’t panic. I’m going to do a reading on my crystal ball, and I don’t want to be interrupted. Just try to be cool, okay?”

  “Be cool?” he repeated incredulously. “What does that mean?”

  “It means relax.”

  “Aren’t you going to even try and find out who this joker is?”

  I let out a beleaguered sigh and marched forward on my knees until I reached his wheelchair, saying, “Give me the binoculars.”

  I raised my head just far enough over the window ledge to see without being seen. I focused the lenses on the guy standing across the street.

  “Oh…my…God.”

  “What?” Jimmy whispered, leaning toward me. “Who is it?”

  I swallowed the lump of dread that had instantly congealed in my throat. “A homicidal maniac.” I slowly rose to my feet.

  “Don’t let him see you!”

  “Don’t worry,” I said in a deadened tone. “He can’t see me. He’s blind.”

  Jimmy grabbed the binoculars out of my hands and took a closer look. “Well, I’ll be damned. He’s facing this way, but you’re right. His eyes are a mess. If he’s not watching your apartment, why is he just standing there?”

  “He wants to intimidate me.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s probably planning on killing me.”

  “Won’t that be hard if he can’t see you?”

  “Not if he has help. Obviously, someone brought him here.”

  “Maybe the person who killed Roy and Victor?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe. But lots of bad guys have used Cy’s underground prison. Any of them might be helping him. I’m calling the cops.”

  That didn’t do much good. I found out that Cy had been set free from the Crypt on a technicality. I hung up on the desk sergeant in the middle of his “There’s nothing we can do about it, ma’am” speech. How come authorities could never do anything about the true psychopaths of this world but they had no problem holding me accountable for a crime I hadn’t committed? I shelved that question beside “What’s the meaning of life?”

  By the time I hung up, Cy was gone. But I knew he’d be back. A lot of my clients were women who hired me to intimidate restraining order violators, or ROVORS as they were quaintly called. I knew how persistent a stalker could be.

  I gave Jimmy one of my digital cameras, since his old-fashioned Kodachrome had been trashed by Marco. Jimmy agreed to take a picture of Cy, or anyone else, who decided to loiter down below. I wasn’t going to panic about Cy’s visit. Not yet. I’d gather proof that he was staking out my place and then call out the dogs. Or a wolf, if Brad the Impaler was willing to loan me Keshon.

  Meanwhile, I set up my crystal scrying ball at the kitchen table. I still felt a little silly using it, but I hadn’t yet been able to conjure visions at will without focusing on the ball. I was finally ready to learn more about Marco. Until we made love last night, it had never occurred to me that he might have insecurities, too. I wanted to support him and make him feel accepted, but to do that I needed to understand more about his past than he was prepared to share. I guess I wanted a glimpse of the worst-case scenario so I could keep a straight face when he finally decided to clue me in.

  I placed my hands on the grapefruit-sized glass. Immediately, it began to glow, which gave me a boost of confidence. My concentration seemed to improve every time I did this.

  Let me see Marco, I thought, and he appeared, fuzzy at first, then clearer.

  “Yes, I know Angel Baker,” Marco said to someone I couldn’t see. “What of it?”

  “I want you to leave her alone,” came a deep voice with a Russian accent. The speaker stepped into view, and I immediately recognized his brusque outline and silver hair.

  “Vladimir Gorky,” I whispered in shock.

  “Why should I leave her alone?” Marco inquired.

  “Because I have plans for her. And they don’t include you.”

  I was so shocked I whipped my hands off the glass and pressed them to my gaping mouth. Blood pounded in my ears. What on Earth did Gorky want with me? More important, why hadn’t Marco told me he still had contact with the most dangerous man in Chicago?

  I reluctantly put my hands back on the crystal. I was both disappointed and relieved to see the scenery had changed. I looked closer and saw an apartment that seemed familiar.

  “Getty,” I said, finally placing the scene. This was Getty Bellows’s place. She was a CRS who lived ten blocks south. I couldn’t figure out why this image was important—or even if my psi abilities included any kind of filtering process.

  Then it all became clear. I saw Getty in her living room. On the floor. Slaughtered.

  I hoofed it the ten blocks to Getty’s bungalow because it was faster than hailing a cab. I threw on some joggers and hit the pavement at a dead run, dodging pedestrians, potholes and windblown trash cans. We can send a woman to Mars, I muttered, but we can’t invent trash cans that remain upright on a windy day.

  I leaped over more than a few, adrenaline lifting me high as I stretched my taut legs over each hurdle. My mind raced even faster than my body.

  No, no, no! I thought. This can’t be. My vision was wrong. Getty is okay. I’ll get there and realize that my so-called psychic abilities had been nothing more than imagination gone wild. She’s probably watching cartoons. I love that about her!

  When you don’t know whether someone is dead or alive, you immediately started recalling even their most bizarre habits with fondness. Getty was forty-two-years-old, but she watched kids’ shows and dressed in plaid school uniforms, complete with white bobby socks and tennis shoes. She kept her orange hair in braids tied with blue ribbons and applied freckles to her nose with an orange eyebrow pencil. She looked like the psycho president of a Pippi Longstockings’ fan club.

  The weird thing is, she was one of the most levelheaded people I knew. She loved kids, and her retribution business specialized in crimes against children. If someone had killed Getty, I’d be really pissed off.

  I stopped abruptly when I reached her corner lot. A trash can rolled back and forth in front of the steps leading up to her small house. Panting as I caught my breath, wiping away a trickle of perspiration that ran down my temple, I studied the can. Had it been wind tossed or knocked down by an escaping murderer?

  Dread rushed through me, congealing like glue on the bottom of my feet, and I walked up the steps with great effort. Each step burned. I felt like I was dragging a freight train behind me. I finally reached the screen door and knocked. I waited. And waited. If she didn’t answer soon, I was afraid my heart would leap out of my chest. I knocked again.

  “Getty?” I called, opening the screen door when no one answered and stepped in the small entryway. “Are you home?”

  A man stepped into my path, towering over me. “She’s home.”

  I jumped and stifled a cry of surprise, then did a double take. “
Marco?”

  “Hello, Angel.”

  He sounded so sad I reached out and touched his arm. “What are you doing here, Marco? Where’s Getty?”

  He swallowed and cleared his throat. “Did you…did you know her well?”

  I blinked rapidly. “Yes, I did, I mean I do. We’re colleagues. And friends, but not close. So, what are you doing here? Where is she?”

  When I tried to walk past him, he stepped in my way and gently gripped my arms, bolstering me. In spite of his familiar strength and warmth, I felt cold inside. I pulled away and pushed past Marco, walking down the hallway into the living room. I stopped when I nearly stumbled over Getty’s body sprawled on the floor.

  I took in several rapid gasps of breath, staggering back. “No! No!” I cried out, then slowly walked to her side, staring down in numb disbelief. It was just as I had foreseen it—horrible then, worse now. More details.

  Bullet holes had pockmarked her chest, little geysers, now frozen with blackish blood that stained her navy blue and forest green plaid jumper. A brighter red stained her white lace baby doll collar.

  “Ah, shit,” I moaned, kneeling at her side. “She deserved better than this.”

  “Don’t touch her,” Marco said. “The homicide techs are on their way.”

  Surprise whipped my head in his direction. Why would he call homicide investigators if he’d murdered Getty? I covered my face with both hands. Jesus, had I really thought, even for a second, that Marco had done this?

  “I didn’t do it, Angel,” he said coolly, as if he didn’t really care whether I believed him. “I was on my way to your place when I heard a neighbor’s call to the dispatcher. I was simply the first to arrive on the scene.”

  Sure. Of course. I would never have suspected you capable of such a crime, I wanted to say, but the words stuck in my throat, so I wiped all emotion from my face as I lowered my hands and simply nodded. The damage between us was already done.

  “I want to know who did this, Marco. What inhuman, worthless slime would cut down someone as well-meaning as Getty?”

  “Very likely that young man right over there.”

  Marco’s nonchalance left me unprepared for what I saw next. He pointed to another dead body I had somehow overlooked, this one sitting at Getty’s small dinette table. He looked like he’d lowered his head into his soup bowl to take a nap.

  “Who on Earth…?” I slowly approached the frozen figure of a skinny kid who had obviously died at that awkward seesaw stage between childhood and adulthood. Angry splotches of acne marred his otherwise baby-smooth face. A patchy, failed attempt at a goatee scarcely covered his chin. I stepped around the other side of the small table to better view the tableau and saw that he clutched Getty’s orange pistol. He’d also violently vomited on the table.

  “What happened here?” I muttered. “She was killed with her own weapon?”

  Marco came to my side and placed a hand gently on my shoulder. “It looks like he was poisoned. He must have shot her before he died.”

  “Getty would never have poisoned a kid!” Just as Roy Leibman would never have shot Victor Alvarez. I was beginning to connect the dots to a picture I didn’t want to see. “Retributionists are being painted as assassins. Why don’t the police realize there’s a conspiracy here?”

  “I’m sure the detectives who are on duty will be more than willing to skirt the answer on that one. Speaking of,” he added ominously, turning me around and giving me a quick goodbye hug, “you’d better get out of here before they arrive. You’re in enough trouble already.”

  “That’s an understatement,” came the crisp, British-accented voice of Lieutenant Townsend as he stepped into the room. Marco released his hold on me but clasped my hand in his. His loyalty in this moment didn’t go unnoticed, by me or Townsend.

  “Fancy meeting both of you at a murder scene,” the Q.E.D. director said, fixing a pointed look at our hands. “Again.”

  He gave us an uninspired smile that I in no way felt obligated to return. A phalanx of evidence technicians filed in behind him and began to swarm over the bodies, scanning for injuries, fingerprints, DNA evidence and a host of other high-tech analysis factors. Townsend motioned toward the other end of the house, and we followed him through Getty’s kitchen into a small family room.

  “We can hear better in here,” Townsend said, glancing around with disapproval at the cartoon posters covering Getty’s wall.

  “This is your fault, Townsend,” I said with barely contained fury. “You falsely arrested me for murder, which gave the real murderer plenty of time for a repeat act.”

  “Oh?” He raised a brow and regarded me with amusement I wasn’t sure he could really feel.

  “If you hadn’t wasted your time charging me with those other murders, you might have been able to find the real killer by now.”

  “She’s right,” Marco said. “Angel didn’t commit this murder or any others. And now two more innocent people are dead.”

  “This is a conspiracy,” Angel said.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “I was here when she arrived, Lieutenant,” Marco said. “I know she’s innocent.”

  “You know her in many ways, don’t you? Why didn’t you tell me you were in a relationship with our suspect in the Alvarez case, Detective Marco?”

  “I didn’t think it would matter. You clearly had your mind made up that she was guilty from the beginning.”

  “Are you accusing me of professional bias?”

  Marco shrugged. “I suppose I am.”

  “You’re officially off that case,” Townsend said, clipping his words. “And I want you to leave now before you contaminate this case as well.”

  Marco clasped my upper arm. “I’m not leaving without her.”

  “Letting her go now would be in violation of protocol.”

  “You can take your protocol and shove it up your bionic ass. You know that if she’s in any way questioned for this murder, her bond will be revoked.”

  Townsend raised his brows in surprise. “Actually, Detective, my ass is completely unaltered. It’s my brain that has been improved.”

  “That’s a matter of debate,” Marco shot back. “A heartless cop is the worst kind.”

  “I suppose your brother Danny was full of heart. Isn’t that how he got himself killed, by using his heart instead of his head?”

  Marco’s muscles turn to stone and I sensed he was about to pounce, so I tugged on his arm. He glanced down. I shook my head and he forced himself to relax.

  “We’ll wait outside,” Marco said. “Let us know how the tech scan goes. If you find any evidence connecting Angel to this crime, we can talk again. But if there’s nothing, we’re leaving.”

  We went outside, where a dozen evidence technicians, beat cops and homicide detectives buzzed around, gathering evidence, talking to headquarters, cordoning off the sidewalks. Marco led me by the arm to a corner of the yard that was relatively private.

  “Why did you admit we were lovers?” I asked. “I thought you wanted to work my case?”

  “Not anymore.” He scratched the back of his neck and regarded me almost sheepishly. “I hate to admit it, but this is now officially over my head.”

  I looked at him in horror. “What do you mean?”

  “Angel, there is no question that you are embroiled in a huge conspiracy. Now, I have to ask you, and I want you to be totally honest with me—why did you come here today?”

  “I saw Getty. I had a vision.”

  He nodded.

  “You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Of course.” He rubbed both my arms reassuringly. “I was the one who encouraged you to develop your psychic skills, remember? But what I think doesn’t count.”

  “Marco, if this is a plot, I can’t be the target. Or at least I’m not the only target. How would the murderer know I would have a vision and come here just before the police arrived? The first time I was called to the scene. This time I came on my own.�
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  He broke into a slow, clever grin. “Now that’s the best deduction I’ve heard all day. I couldn’t stand for you to be the prime target, Angel. But before we kick up our heels in joy, let’s wait and see if the investigators find any Angel Baker memorabilia strategically planted inside Getty’s house.”

  “At least they won’t find my gun,” I said wryly, “smoking or otherwise. It’s still locked up in the evidence vault down at P.S. #1.”

  “You were right,” Townsend said a half hour later as he joined us in the garden. He blinked in the bright sunshine and regarded us almost amiably. I was beginning to think this automaton might have a soul after all.

  “You didn’t find anything?” Marco asked.

  “As much as I hate to admit it, there is not a shred of evidence connecting Miss Baker to this scene. I’m going to let you go.”

  “Thank you,” I said, releasing my pent-up breath. I even conjured a smile. “I appreciate that.”

  “But not before you tell me how you arrived at this murder scene at such an inopportune time? It couldn’t have been coincidence.”

  I exchanged a look with Marco, wishing I could read his mind. Should I tell Townsend the truth? I’d found from experience that was usually the best policy, but in this case…

  “I had a psychic vision of Getty’s death,” I said, trying to sound businesslike. “I’m…psychic, believe it or not.”

  Townsend scrutinized me for several moments and said, “I don’t believe you.”

  “Some people are logical,” I answered, “and some are intuitive. I was tested by IPAC researchers. The police force uses IPAC-trained psychics all the time, although most of them have been implanted with computer chips to enhance their perceptions. Surely, Lieutenant, you can relate to surgical enhancements.”

  “I have my doubts about the use of psychics in detective work,” he replied. “Logical examination of evidence and unbiased interrogation is all an investigator needs to do his job. You are a sentimentalist who ascribes a lucky, or unlucky, turn of events to innate ability. Your leap of logic is laughable.”