The Empathic Detective: A Mystery Thriller

by Jaxon Reed

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to have to announce that Captain Wilton has been suspended without pay for frequent violations of department policies.”

  She did not look the least bit sorry for the announcement, and Bryce could tell she did not feel sorry, either. She felt exultant. Victorious.

  “For the nonce, I will be nominally in charge of this precinct until we find a suitable replacement for the Captain. I will be going over each and every one of your files in detail throughout the morning, and I will be speaking to each of you on an individual basis regarding your standing in this department.”

  She beamed with a broad, triumphant smile, as the impact of her statement began settling across the room.

  “That is all.”

  She turned around, entered the Captain’s office, and closed the door gently behind her.

  -+-

  Two hours later, Lu called Bryce into the office.

  “Please shut the door behind you and have a seat.”

  She glanced up from her clipboard as he sat down, and smiled a fake apologetic smile.

  “I’m afraid, Detective Bryce, some anomalies have appeared in your employment record.”

  Bryce smiled back at her, and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  “Yes, I’m seeing some rather serious instances of insubordination over the years.”

  “I suspect what you’re really seeing is quite different, Ms. Lu. I know for a fact I have the highest successful case closure rate of all detectives in the department.”

  Her smile dropped at his tone. She sniffed and glanced down at her vid sheet again.

  “Case closures are not the only yardstick by which we measure efficacy, Detective. There is also the matter of several instances documented here where your fellow detectives and officers have stated they feel uncomfortable working with you. It seems you can’t keep a partner, and nobody in the department particularly likes you.”

  At least that part is true, he thought.

  He smiled.

  “I’m the best detective we’ve got, regardless of how others feel about me.”

  She smiled back with that fake plastic smile of hers.

  “I’m afraid you are hereby suspended without pay. Indefinitely.”

  Her smile broadened into a grin.

  “Have a good day!”

  -+-

  Bryce, Parker, Renard and Desmet sat out on a private lanai at Nightsky. The men drank beer, the women held glasses of wine.

  Parker had been suspended immediately after Bryce, again on the pretext of insubordination and difficulties with coworkers supposedly found in her file.

  “I haven’t been here long enough to even have much of a file,” she said bitterly.

  “Don’t beat yourself up. You know what this is about. It’s all a contrivance to get us out.”

  She nodded in agreement, but Bryce could tell knowledge of the fact did not make her feel better.

  “It wouldn’t be so bad if that Lu woman hadn’t been so smug when she told me.”

  Desmet nodded, and murmured something under his breath in French. Bryce only caught one word: “Salope.”

  Desmet took a long sip of beer and slipped into black thoughts. Lu had cut his and Renard’s computer privileges. She then invited them into the Captain’s office to politely (and smugly) inform them they were no longer welcome in the department, and that any services they had to offer were no longer needed.

  Renard, in contrast to her partner, seemed genuinely upbeat.

  “She has not won. We are still here, no? We still have Der Hexenhammer. We will find a way.”

  Parker nodded, accepting her points, but remained doubtful.

  “Yeah, but how are we going to take on the Governor’s Mansion with all those state troopers? The four of us going in alone can’t do it, right? We need a task force. And since we’re not on the department’s payroll anymore, it’s not like we can order up a bunch of officers to help us out. And we can’t really call on a bunch of friends.

  “Right, Bryce? I’m still new here. I don’t have any friends. I don’t think you do, either.”

  Bryce nodded, thinking.

  “It’s true we’d have a hard time coming up with two or three dozen officers to lead an assault. Not without the Chief and the Captain behind us, anyway. And certainly not in this climate of fear Lu has created in the department.”

  They lapsed into silence, each sipping on their drinks.

  Then Bryce’s eyebrows shot up with an idea. He touched his phone implant and began scrolling through contacts on the virtual screen.

  Bryce could feel Parker’s curiosity.

  “Who are you calling?”

  He stopped scrolling when he came across the virtual card he wanted.

  “The Bolshoi Boys.”

  -+-

  “One good thing about Stalin’s purges, they took out most of the bloodlines from Russia. We have not had to deal with the same thing the West has in recent times, so far as harpies and other ‘cunning folk.’”

  Bryce nodded politely, and wondered about the statement’s accuracy. Europol had not kept track of the cunning folk before World War II. Europol had not even existed until the late twentieth century. How would the Russians know about the bloodlines before then, if Europe was not paying much attention?

  On the other hand, tracking the bloodlines required genealogical research. Maybe the Russians did some digging on their own, and found out later some older bloodlines had been cut short during the Communist purges. That made sense.

  “It is a sad day to see their kind on our shores causing trouble. Immigrants, eh?”

  Bryce smiled, and nodded politely at the joke. Ivan himself had only been here a few years, and still carried a thick Russian accent despite his excellent command of English.

  “So! You come to Ivan for help. She has kicked you out of the police department.”

  “That’s correct. We’re suspended, and she’s dismantled the department’s leadership.”

  They sat in a restaurant Bryce had never visited before, on the east side of town. It was deserted, and most of the chairs were stacked upside down on the tables.

  Briefly researching their meeting location beforehand, Bryce discovered the place was owned by what appeared to be a shell corporation. He suspected Ivan either controlled the restaurant directly, or controlled its owners. Either way, it had been closed for their meeting and they had the place to themselves.

  Ivan’s two bodyguards stood ever vigilant on either side of him. They had not bothered disarming the detectives when Bryce and Parker entered, but Bryce suspected they could kill him before he got his gun out. Not that he had any intentions to do so. He deliberately kept his hands visible at all times to help keep their minds at ease.

  “So what can I do for you, Detective? How can I help take the harpy down?”

  “We need men. As many as you can spare.”

  Ivan’s eyebrows rose.

  “You mean to storm the Governor’s Mansion?”

  Bryce nodded. Ivan was smart. He did not miss a beat.

  “That will cost us. She already bloodied us when she took control of six of my men to attack your station.”

  “We have a drug compound from Europol. All your men will take the drug before we go in. It dampens emotions. She won’t be able to control them. We’ll shoot the state troopers with a liquid form of the drug using tranquilizer darts. It’s fast acting, and she’ll lose control of them when they pass out. The drug will stay in their system after they wake up, too. Once tranquilized, they’ll be out of the game.”

  “It would be easier to just kill the troopers, and anybody else who gets in our way.”

  “No, they’re highly trained and won’t go down easy. Besides, if we can do this without killing anybody, things will go well for you afterwards.”

  Bryce paused to let his statement sink in. Ivan nodded thoughtfully.

  “Yes. I like the idea of being a hero. And perhaps several people
will owe me favors. The police. The state troopers. You. The Governor. This is a good idea, Detective. We will use your tranquilizer medicine, and we will try not to kill anybody. Except the harpy. We are in agreement she is to be killed, yes?”

  Bryce nodded firmly.

  “Yes.”

  -+-

  The four conspirators met back at Nightsky for supper. Desmet brought a large vid sheet with satellite maps of the Governor’s Mansion. It stood on its own block next to the State Capitol grounds. The official address was 1010 Colorado Street. Another vid sheet held detailed blueprints of the mansion. The detectives and agents examined the sheets closely, considering the best plan of attack.

  “One of our problems,” Parker said, “is I suspect she will be monitoring our bank accounts and anything else financially related. I don’t know how they do it here, but in California when an officer is suspended, all their online activity and bank accounts are monitored. She’s going to notice when we buy supplies for the attack and maybe get an idea of what to expect.”

  Renard said, “Leave that to us. We can buy what we need on our agency credit. We will justify the expenses when we get back home.”

  The door opened after a polite knock, and the maître d’hôtel stuck his head in the room.

  “Mr. Bryce, I’m afraid a couple of gentlemen who are not members of the club are down in the parking lot, requesting an audience with you. We have no record of these men as your previous guests, and I’d like to know if you wish to allow them to come up.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They say their names are Detectives Miller and Jenkins, sir.”

  “Oh, okay. Yeah I know them, send them on up.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  A few minutes later, the door opened again, and Miller and Jenkins walked in. Jenkins carried a large suitcase.

  Everybody shook hands and the two older detectives looked around in wonder. They gazed out over the balcony rail at the Capitol Building and surrounding cityscape far below.

  Jenkins whistled softly.

  “I’ve never been up here before. Nice place! You can smoke up here, too?”

  Bryce nodded.

  “Want a cigar? I’ll have them fetch you one. They have a great humidor.”

  Jenkins exchanged glances with his partner. Miller shook his head slightly.

  “Nah, wish I could but we can’t stay. Officially we’re on a case and the way Ms. Genghis Kahn is watching over everything, she’d notice if we stayed here too long. But hey, we did want to bring y’all this.”

  Jenkins pointed at the suitcase, and Bryce felt a sense of optimism from the two men.

  “What is it?”

  “This is the latest in experimental crime fighting technology. We pilfered it from the lab boys. It hasn’t been used in the field yet, but we figure if you’re going to lead an assault on the Governor’s Mansion, that’s as good a time as any to try this thing out.”

  Bryce felt the women and Desmet stiffen. He felt mildly alarmed too, but he kept his voice steady.

  “What makes you think we’re going to assault the Governor’s Mansion?”

  Jenkins looked down at the large vid sheets showing satellite shots and blueprints of the mansion and snorted.

  “Look, it’s no secret you’re going after Lamont. Heck, we were there after she sicced your own security guard against you, remember? Not to mention her assault on the station. This here will help even your odds, trust us.”

  He laid the suitcase down on the table on top of the vid sheets, and popped the latches. Opening the case revealed a large suit made of filmy material, and a power pack the size of a small book.

  “This, boys and girls, is an invisibility suit.”

  Bryce guffawed.

  “No, really,” Miller said. “We’ve seen it operational in the lab.”

  “How does it work?” Parker asked.

  “Well it doesn’t really make you invisible. But it’s close. It bends light around you.”

  Bryce rubbed his chin in thought.

  “That’s an old idea, actually. Scientists have been able to do that on a small scale in the lab for decades. But I’ve never heard of it being tried with a man-sized suit before.”

  “We’ve seen it work,” Miller insisted. “When you’re standing still, you’re practically invisible. You can’t be seen easily when moving, either. Everything blends in around you. Like a chameleon.”

  “We just have the one,” Jenkins chimed in. “But maybe it’ll give you an edge when you take on Lamont.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The foursome skimmed south and east of town in Parker’s car. The women sat in front, the men in back. The neighborhoods below grew more and more gritty, with warehouses and slum apartments sprawling out in a dirty tableau.

  Finally Parker landed the car, floating down to a parking lot adjacent to a dilapidated building. Everyone exited the vehicle and headed for the entrance.

  The building had two doors, a large overhead garage door and a normal size one. A state of the art security system guarded the front of the building. Bryce counted four surveillance cams, including one aimed at the parking lot. He suspected more were hidden strategically in case someone tried to take out the cams they could see.

  A sign on the smaller door read, “Poindexter Rare Machinery & Assorted Equipment.”

  Before anyone could knock, the door opened, and a tall, lanky man with a large pot belly stepped out. About sixty years old, he wore scuffed cowboy boots, a battered black Texas Tech baseball cap over tufts of grey hair, and denim overalls with no shirt on underneath.

  Oil stains and other liquids of various sorts had splattered across the overalls, and hard use had left the denim worn, with holes and white underthreads everywhere. The overalls had evidently not been washed recently, either, and the original color of blue seemed hardly evident.

  He wiped grease off his hands on a shop towel, then shoved the towel in a front pocket on the overalls’ bib and stuck his hand out.

  “I’m Dexter P. D. Poindexter. What can I do for y’all?”

  Bryce shook his hand. It still felt greasy despite the shop towel’s best efforts.

  “Gerald Bryce. We’re interested in purchasing a large order of supplies from you, Mr. Poindexter. Tranquilizer guns, in particular.”

  Poindexter nodded, thoughtfully.

  “Ayup. I gots those in stock. How many were you thinking of buying?”

  “How many do you have?”

  Poindexter grinned widely, showing a mouth full of yellow teeth.

  “I gots about fifty! That enough for ya?”

  Bryce nodded.

  “We’ll take them all. They include darts?”

  “Ayup. Each one comes with six darts in the box. I’ma gonna need payment up front.”

  “If we can see them, we’ll pay for them now.”

  “Fair ’nuff. Come on inside.”

  He opened the smaller door for them, and everyone walked in. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust in the dim light.

  The front half of the warehouse served as a large garage, filled with old-fashioned cars. Bryce could make out a Pontiac Trans Am from the 1970s, an old Chevy Corvette with split rear windows, an ancient Volkswagen Beetle, and half a dozen other vehicles from the twentieth century.

  An old Ford Mustang stood up on blocks, its hood open.

  “That’s my baby, from nineteen sixty-five. Been working on her for a month now. She’ll run again soon, if I can ever get a few more parts for her. I also deal in antique autos, as y’all can see. Sell you one of these too if you want. They’re all available. Except for the ’Stang. I’ma gonna keep her for myself.

  “Let’s mosey on to the back and I’ll find that box of tranquilizer guns.”

  He led them deeper into the warehouse, and they walked along rows of shelving and pallets overflowing with boxes of electronics, gadgets, and machinery.

  “Lessee, now. I do have an organizing system here. There�
�s a method to the madness. Oh yeah, over here.”

  He led them toward the back of the building, finally stopping at a pallet with a large cardboard box. Someone had written “TRANQ” on the box with a permanent marker.

  Poindexter opened the top of the box and pulled out a plastic case. He popped open the case, pulled out a dart gun, and handed it over to Bryce.

  “Single shot, C-O-two powered. Comes with six darts. Fill them up with your tranquilizer, load them in the gun and you’re good to go.”

  Bryce nodded.

  “We’ll take them. Pay the man, Phoebe.”

  Before she could react, Desmet spoke up.

  “Excuse, please, have you any communications gear?”

  “Sho ’nuff, Four Eyes! I gots the best you’re gonna find in Central Texas. Looky here.”

  Poindexter led them down a different row, this one filled exclusively with electronics. He stopped at a large shelving unit overstuffed with smaller boxes. He grabbed one, opened it, and took out an earpiece.

  “This here is a self-contained unit. Stick it in your ear and you can hear everyone else wearing one. It picks up your voice too, so it’s an all-in-one piece. Ayup. Good stuff. Straight from Hong Kong.”

  Bryce looked at the unit skeptically.

  “Looks kind of old.”

  “That’s right, boss. They don’t make ’em like this no more. This here is the good stuff, imported in legally before those jerks up on the hill banned ’em. Each unit operates on a mesh network using spectrum-hopping technology. Very difficult to monitor.”

  Desmet took the unit from Poindexter and examined it closely. Poindexter kept talking.

  “The state don’t mess with this stuff no more, anyhow. They’re more worried about these newfangled neural cellular communications.”

  Poindexter pointed to Bryce’s phone implant, the slight bulge sticking out under his ear.

  “That’s the thing everybody tries to listen to. Couldn’t pay me nothin’ to stick one of those things in my body.”

  Bryce smiled politely, then looked at Desmet.

  “What do you think?”

  “Yes. This is what we want. Also, do you have a cryo-coffin for sale?”

  Poindexter indeed had a cryo-coffin in stock. They followed him over to another part of the building.