Beyond Belief

by Roy Johansen

  * * *

  Joe arrived at work at the windowless ten-story police headquarters building located on the periphery of the Georgia State University campus. “GSU's biggest dorm,” the students joked, as the building also housed the Atlanta city jail.

  He entered the squad room, where tacky green felt acoustic panels did little to quiet the bustle of activity from fourteen cops at their desks. The receptionist, Karen Nevois, stopped him.

  “Joe, you'd better get over to Lieutenant Gerald's office in Homicide.”

  “Now?”

  “Unless you'd like to keep the chief of police waiting.”

  “You're kidding, right?”

  No smile. She wasn't kidding.

  He rapped on the door of Gerald's office and stepped inside. Gerald, Howe, and the police chief, Paul Davis, were standing around the desk, looking at the morning newspaper.

  Gerald didn't look as if he had slept. “Close the door behind you, Bailey.”

  Davis stepped forward and extended his hand. “Good morning.”

  Joe shook hands with him. Davis was a fiftyish man with white hair and horn-rimmed glasses.

  “What the hell happened there last night, Joe?”

  “I'm sure Howe filled you in. I surveyed the scene. There was no evidence of lifts, pulleys, or any kind of winch. The sculpture that went through the victim normally rested on the other side of the room. It was angled downward, which means force had to have been directed from a height of over eleven feet. Do we know the weight of that sculpture?”

  Gerald nodded. “One hundred and sixty-two pounds.”

  “Heavier than I thought. I'd like copies of the videotapes and photographs that were taken.”

  “You got it.”

  “Lieutenant, I have to tell you, I have a pretty heavy load of my own right now.”

  “Not anymore. I've already spoken with Henderson. You're on this full-time, and you'll be working with Howe.”

  Joe cast a glance at his new partner. Howe obviously wasn't happy.

  Davis held up the paper's front page. “You know, of course, this is only the beginning. Tonight it will be on Hard Copy, A Current Affair, and American Journal. By tomorrow, Letterman and Leno will be joking about it. By Monday, it may be in Time and Newsweek. Psychic murder, the headlines will scream, along with this ghastly picture. Damn.”

  Gerald nodded. “We need to put this one away quickly.”

  The chief looked at Joe. “Anything you need, any help you require, just ask. And I don't want any statements to the press unless it has been cleared through my office. Are we all clear on that?”

  Joe, Howe, and Gerald nodded.

  “Now, what about this ridiculous story about the boy and his powers?”

  Howe produced his notebook and deliberately stepped in front of Joe. “His name is Jesse Randall. He's eight years old, African-American, and lives on Avenue K in Techwood. Dr. Nelson had been studying what he believed to be the boy's telekinetic abilities, and the two staged a demonstration for several other parapsychologists in Dallas last month. Every scientist there was convinced that Jesse Randall is the genuine article.”

  Joe shook his head. “It was an easy crowd to convince. He probably wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in front of a group of professional magicians.”

  “Or you?” the chief asked.

  “Or me.”

  “Good. That's your angle. Find out how Nelson was killed, and figure out how the boy does his stuff. A lot of the heat will dissipate as soon as you do that.”

  “I thought the goal was to find out who did it.”

  “That's my job,” Howe said.

  “It's both of your jobs,” Gerald said. “You'll just be going at it from two different directions. Coordinate with each other, gentlemen. Remember the box in your grade school report card that said ‘works and plays well with others’? That was to get you ready for this.”

  Howe obviously wasn't happy as he and Joe walked downstairs.

  “Okay, Howe, what's the problem?”

  “The problem is that I'm gonna be busting my hump to break this case, when all you'll be doing is deflecting bad PR.”

  “I'll be doing a bit more than that.”

  Howe stopped on the landing and spoke in sharp, icy tones. “Our authority is one of the best weapons we have, Bailey. Last night you undercut mine in front of a witness and potential suspect.”

  “That's what this is all about?”

  “That and the fact that I've already been poached way too many times.”

  Joe nodded. Now it made sense. Just as stealing credit was common in the corporate world, it was part of life on the force. He knew quite a few cops who had ascended through the ranks by poaching cases and one-upping their fellow officers whenever they got the chance.

  “So you're afraid the Spirit Basher will grab all the glory?”

  “That's where this is headed. The second you walked into that room, I was invisible.”

  “I'm not looking to take anything away from you.”

  “Whether you're looking to do it or not, it could still happen. I've been screwed more times than I can count. Just stay out of my way, Bailey. You handle the how, and I'll take care of the who and why. Got it?”

  “Now we know how you scored on the ‘works and plays well with others’ box, huh?”

  Howe glared at him and continued down the stairs.

  Jesse Randall sat in the corner of the school playground, pushing his Hot Wheels Grand Prix racing car through the dirt path he had just carved with his middle three fingers. Some of the guys called it a “grand pricks” racer, but he knew they were just jealous.

  It was recess time at Lackey Hills Elementary School, and Jesse was once again playing by himself. Even though he never did his tricks for the other kids, they had heard about him from their parents and teachers. The word got out that he was someone to be afraid of, and one by one his friends withdrew, closing him out of their fourth-grade cliques.

  Fine. He didn't need ‘em. One day soon he'd buy a nice house like he and Mama had always wanted. Then he'd have friends in his new neighborhood, and maybe Daddy would even want to come back to live with them. If his tricks could make that happen, it was worth having to play alone.

  Jesse looked up and saw three men and a woman walking toward him. They were on the other side of the playground's chain-link fence, and two of the men had large TV cameras. He'd seen cameras like that in Dallas.

  He hated Dallas.

  In Dallas there were lots of people asking questions, wiring horrible machines to his head and chest. Dr. Nelson said it was okay, but he wasn't nice the way he had been in Atlanta. He sometimes yelled, especially when the tricks weren't working well.

  “Make it happen, boy…. You want to make a fool of yourself?” he'd shout.

  Dr. Nelson later said he was sorry, calling it another experiment.

  Whatever.

  It didn't make up for the days of tests, interviews, and experiments that measured everything from his eating habits to his sleep routines.

  The people with the cameras were now standing at the fence. He'd seen one of them before; the pretty lady was on the news. She shouted at him: “Are you Jesse Randall?”

  He adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses and nodded.

  She slid off her shoes and climbed over the fence, looking far less classy than she always did on TV. One of the cameramen handed her his camera and climbed over to join her.

  Jesse stood up. He'd climbed that fence many times when a pop fly went over, but he'd never seen grown-ups doing it.

  The cameraman pointed his camera at Jesse as the pretty lady shoved a large microphone in his face. “Hi, Jesse. I'm Darlene Farrell from Big Four News. How are you today?”

  Jesse shrugged. He wanted to turn and run, but he stood still, staring down at that microphone with the big “4” on it.

  She moved in closer. “Tell me, Jesse, did you kill Dr. Robert Nelson?”

  Jesse stared at her in bewild
erment. What was she talking about?

  The other reporter, now awkwardly climbing the fence, chimed in. “Did you use your powers, Jesse? Did you murder Dr. Nelson with your powers?”

  “Dr. Nelson?” Jesse said, still not grasping the question.

  Other kids in the playground had noticed the cameras, and they were starting to approach to see what the commotion was about.

  Darlene Farrell leaned closer. “You know he's dead, don't you, honey?”

  “He is not!” Jesse shouted.

  She handed him the morning paper, then stepped out of the way to allow the camera to catch his reaction.

  Dr. Nelson …

  Jesse threw down the paper. “This isn't him!”

  Darlene stepped closer. “I'm afraid it is him, Jesse, and some people think it's your fault. How does that make you feel?”

  Jesse pushed her. “Go away! Just go away!”

  How could this happen? Dr. Nelson …

  “Honey, do you want to talk about it?”

  “I want you to go away!” His nose was running, and he could feel the tears starting to well up. He wanted to turn away from her, but he didn't want the other kids to see him crying. He kept his head low and backed away.

  “Not yet, honey. I need to talk to you first. Would you show us how your powers work?”

  “No. Go away!”

  She smiled sweetly. “Please, Jesse. For me?”

  “Get the hell away from him!” Jesse's mother appeared from the other side of the swingsets. Latisha Randall hurled herself at the cameraman and knocked him to the ground.

  “That's a fourteen-thousand-dollar camera!” Darlene yelled.

  “If you don't get out of my face, that's going to be fourteen thousand dollars up your ass!”

  Darlene backed off.

  Latisha glared at the TV journalists. She was a tall, thin woman with pronounced cheekbones and a no-nonsense attitude that dared anyone to cross her. She held Jesse close. “It's okay, sweetheart.”

  “Dr. Nelson!” he wailed.

  “Shh, I know. I just heard it on the radio, honey. I came right away.”

  The reporters yelled at Jesse.

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Do your magic, Jesse!”

  “Show us how you did it!”

  Latisha picked him up and walked across the playground with him, hurrying to stay ahead of the reporters and cameramen.

  “Have you ever hurt anyone else with your powers?”

  “Miss Randall, are you afraid that your son may be taken away from you?”

  Across the street from the playground, Garrett Lyles sat in the cab of his Ford Explorer pickup truck and gripped the steering wheel hard. How dare those reporters treat Jesse Randall with such disrespect. Wasn't that professor's death enough to show them how powerful he was?

  Of course not. They were fools.

  Too bad the mother had come; it would've been nice to see Jesse take care of them himself. That would have been something to see. He could easily imagine the pretty reporter choking on her microphone, with the cord twisting and turning around her thin neck.

  But Jesse wouldn't do that. Only now was he beginning to realize the full extent of his powers, and his most spectacular displays hadn't even been executed by his conscious mind. Jesse was new at this, and he needed guidance. He also needed protection against the scum that would prey upon him now that his abilities were widely known.

  That's what he was there for. Excitement coursed through him at the thought. It was time to take action.

  He started up the truck and put it into gear.

  “You've got to be kidding.”

  Sam Brewster ran his hands through his thick white hair as he studied the crime scene photos of Nelson's murder.

  “I wish I were kidding,” Joe said. “Any ideas?”

  Sam put the photo down on the sales counter in front of him. He was the eighty-five-year-old proprietor of Sam's Magic, a hole-in-the-wall shop in the downtown neighborhood of Five Points. Joe had been a regular customer since he was eight years old, and he suspected that Sam had been operating the store at a loss for years. Sam, however, was still quite active designing spectacular stage illusions for world-renowned magicians, and his shop was an indulgence he could well afford. It was located only a few blocks from police headquarters, and Joe still stopped by the store at least twice a week.

  “Is there a chandelier or any other kind of lighting fixture I'm not seeing here?”

  “Nope.”

  “This is reaching, but would it have been possible to drive the arm of a crane through an open window?”

  “The window is too small. It's framed in oak, and there weren't any marks on it.”

  Sam shook his head. “If you figure this one out, let me know. I could sell it to Copperfield for a mint.”

  Sam's assistant, Vince, appeared from the back storeroom. Vince was a nineteen-year-old former street hustler who had once practiced his sleight-of-hand scams on tourists and conventioneers along International Boulevard. After Joe busted Vince almost two years before, Sam put his talents to use as a salesperson in his store. Vince was on his way to becoming a fine illusionist, and Joe was sure that his rugged good looks and charisma would translate across any stage. Vince already had a fan in Nikki, who lobbied for him every time Joe needed a baby-sitter for the evening.

  “Hiya, Joe. How's my girl?”

  “She's furious with you because you weren't able to watch her last night.”

  Vince smiled. “It was open-mike night at the Punchline, and I made my comedy magic debut.”

  “How'd it go?”

  “The magic part went great. The comedy part, well, let's just say it was a humbling experience.”

  “I'm sure it wasn't that bad.”

  “It's the toughest crowd I've had since a group of Hell's Angels caught me palming an ace in a curbside draw poker scam.”

  “At least you walked out of the Punchline in one piece.”

  Vince chuckled as he walked to the front window. “With scars that will never heal.”

  Sam handed the photos back to Joe. “You got your work cut out for you, kid. I'll ask around and see if the local talent has heard anything.”

  “I'd appreciate it, Sam. Everyone's watching me on this one.”

  “If you screw up, you can always go back to your old line of work.”

  “And spend the rest of my life performing escapes to a disco version of ‘My Heart Will Go On’? No thanks.”

  “And I guess that busting palm readers is more dignified?”

  “Well, at least it won't bring abject humiliation to me and my family.”

  “No, your paycheck takes care of that.”

  It was an argument he and Sam had been having ever since he quit the magic business. Joe had grown up with a romantic vision of illusionists like Houdini, Thurston, and Kellar, but their dignified brand of showmanship didn't exist anymore. Now it was all about cheesy music, dopey patter, and laser light shows.

  He had tried to play that game and had even been fairly successful at it, picking up occasional opening-act gigs in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. But it hadn't taken him long to realize that it wasn't for him, and he resented the long weeks it kept him away from his wife.

  “But why a cop?” his friends always asked in disbelief.

  He usually responded with a shrug and the simple statement that his father had been on the force.

  Like that really meant anything. But it always seemed to satisfy them.

  His father had been on the force, a desk sergeant in the tiny Vinings station, and hardly a day went by that Dad didn't talk about how miserable the job made him. He now owned a revival movie theater, the Celluloid Palace, in Savannah.

  The irony of the situation didn't escape Joe: He was a cop, and Dad was in the entertainment business. But Joe had always liked the camaraderie in the department, and when he began to think about changing careers, it had been a comfortable choice to make. He had known ma
ny of his fellow second- and third-generation officers since childhood, and he felt at home wearing Dad's worn Brigade holster.

  Sam lifted his spectacles and took another long look at the photo. “I sure hope you nail the bastard who did this. It takes some kind of sicko to rig this kind of murder.”

  “I can't argue with that.”

  “But when you do figure it out, I hope you give me an exclusive on how he did it.”

  Lyles smiled at the pretty television news reporter as she climbed into her Jaguar in the Kroger supermarket parking lot. “Darlene Farrell?” he asked.

  She immediately assumed a defensive posture, obviously conditioned from years of dealing with scary fans and hormone-charged stalkers. “Yes?”

  “You don't remember me, do you? I'm Harry Martin. I used to date Elizabeth MacKenzie.”

  She instantly relaxed. Perfect, he thought. Although there was still no way she could recognize him, the mention of a familiar name was enough to put her at ease. If only she knew that he had just come from the Emory University library, where he had spent forty-five minutes poring through her college yearbook. Elizabeth MacKenzie had been a fellow anchor of Darlene's on the campus closed-circuit television broadcasts.

  She smiled. “Harry! Of course I remember. How are you?”

  Lyles was impressed; the phony bitch was giving a terrific performance. Almost as good as his.

  “Great. I own my own software company up in Marietta.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  They chatted for a few minutes, and Lyles tossed out just enough names from the yearbook to completely convince her that he was a long-lost college friend. He even admitted that he'd always thought she was a much better broadcaster than his old girlfriend.

  The stuck-up bitch was eating it up.

  “So,” Darlene finally said, “did you ever get married?”

  Bingo.

  She was interested. He had no doubt that his looks and charm had swayed her, but he suspected that the competition with her old college coanchor had also played a part.

  “Nah,” he replied. “I've just been too busy. I guess you know how that is, huh? I see your reports on the news almost every night.”