In addition to the five basic senses, I also have synesthetic reactions to my emotions, either a visual manifestation or a physical sensation. My emotions were put through the wringer at times when I was growing up. I would say things like, “This song is too red and wavy” or “This sandwich tastes like a tuba.” It didn’t help me fit in with the other kids, and my teachers grew concerned when they realized I was seeing things that weren’t there . . . or at least things that weren’t there for most people. The visual manifestations I had were very real to me, and they still are. But the lack of understanding regarding my condition left many people fearful and confused. I quickly learned to keep most of my experiences to myself rather than share them. After spending time observing other people’s reactions to things, and hearing their comments and descriptions regarding their own sensual experiences, I gradually learned which of my responses were considered “normal” and which ones were my own peculiarity.
When the hormonal surge of adolescence hit me, my synesthesia became even more pronounced. Had it not been for one particularly patient and insightful doctor, I would’ve ended up committed to a psychiatric institution. Instead, my father and I learned how to control my disorder and hide it from the outside world. However, in private, he and I played with my abilities from time to time. My synesthesia is not only more severe than most, my senses are greatly heightened. I can smell, see, and feel things that others can’t. I can often tell when something has been recently moved because I can feel changes in the air pressure or see a difference in the air surrounding the spot where the item used to be.
The aspect of my synesthesia that has turned out to be the most significant of late is that I’m something of a human lie detector. In the vast majority of people, the voice changes ever so slightly when they’re lying—a subconscious thing. This results in a variation in whatever manifestation I experience when listening to their voice. Once I’ve learned what someone’s voice normally tastes or looks like, I can tell when they’re lying because that taste or visual manifestation will suddenly change.
Because of my experiences as a child, I spent most of my life trying to hide my synesthesia from the world. It was an embarrassment to me, a handicap, a disability, something to be scorned and laughed at, something that made me stand out from the rest of the world . . . and not in a good way. That all changed this past year, however. It began with the murder of my father in the alley behind our bar, though I had no way of knowing at the time how that one event would drastically alter the route my life was taking. Eight months later, Ginny Rifkin, the woman who was my father’s girlfriend when he died, was also murdered, her body left in the same alley. Her death led to Duncan Albright entering my life and my life becoming focused on death.
Duncan was a relatively new detective with the police force in our district, and he was the detective in charge of investigating Ginny’s murder. When he determined that the culprit was likely someone near and dear to me, he decided to do some undercover work at my bar, pretending he was a new hire so he could gain the confidence of my staff and customers, and dig for information and clues. In the process, he discovered how my synesthesia helped when it came to interpreting crime scenes, analyzing clues, or talking to witnesses and suspects. With the help of some of my customers, who formed the basis for what would become the Capone Club, we solved the murders of both Ginny and my father.
Intrigued by my ability, Duncan invited me along to some other crime scenes, where I was able to pick up on subtle clues that led to solving the cases. Duncan started calling me his secret weapon, and I relished the fact that my synesthesia was finally making itself useful. Instead of feeling like it was a shameful secret I needed to hide, I began to think of it as my superpower. We made a great team. I enjoyed helping Duncan, and he reaped the benefits of my abilities. Unfortunately, not everyone saw it the way we did, and things got messy fast.
The press caught on to me, and sensationalistic news stories started cropping up about how the police were using magic, witchcraft, and voodoo to solve their crimes. Then I got a little careless on one case and ended up nearly getting shot. Endangering a layperson in this manner didn’t sit well with Duncan’s bosses, and as a result, he was suspended for a few weeks and ordered not to associate with me.
This might not have been a huge issue but for two things. One, I had invited Duncan into my bed as well as into my life by then, and we were in the process of exploring the potential behind our relationship. Letting go of that wasn’t easy. And two, I’d discovered I liked this crime-solving stuff and putting my synesthesia to good use. The intrinsic high it gave me was strangely intoxicating, and I didn’t want to let it go. My synesthesia had been an albatross around my neck most of my life, almost literally so, because whenever I grew nervous about exposing it or revealing it to someone for the first time, it triggered an uncomfortable strangling sensation around my throat.
As if Duncan’s suspension and the edict to avoid me weren’t big enough nails in the coffin of our relationship, things got even more complicated when I attracted the attention of a deadly stalker, someone who wrote letters that demanded I solve a series of complicated puzzles by a prescribed deadline, and do so using only my “special talent” without the assistance of Duncan or the police. The consequence of failing to do so was the death of someone close to me. The letter writer proved this wasn’t an idle threat by killing one of my customers—someone who was also part of the Capone Club—and using the first letter I received to tell me where the body was. Then, a week or so later, my bouncer, Gary Gunderson, was murdered in cold blood when I failed to correctly interpret clues in one of the letters by the set deadline.
After several harrowing and frightening weeks of skulking around so I could still see Duncan with no one being the wiser, the stalker was finally exposed and caught. Sadly, it turned out my stalker wasn’t a lone wolf. One of the trusted members of the Capone Club was working with the culprit, and the whole thing left everyone involved reeling and feeling unsettled. We were all struggling at this point to regain some semblance of normalcy.
For me, the definition of normalcy remained unclear. In our hunt for the stalker, I was approached at one point by the police chief and the DA, both of whom had decided that a philosophy of if you can’t beat them, join them was their best recourse at this point. In a period of a few days, I went from being persona non grata with the police department to being invited to work with them on a consulting basis. While I suspect the motives of the chief and the DA were primarily political in nature, given an upcoming election, their offer benefited me in enough ways that I accepted their invitation. It not only allowed me to use my synesthesia in a way that was intrinsically rewarding, it provided me with a new stream of income and freed me to openly pursue my relationship with Duncan.
So after a year of incredible loss, emotional pain, tumult, and confusion, I found myself starting the new year with a renewed sense of hope for the future. Ironically, it resulted in me standing in a home and staring at a dead man on the anniversary of my father’s murder. I couldn’t decide if this was a good omen or not.
Dead Calm Page 35