by Dale Mayer
Rodney shook his head. “Yes …”
“Why do I hear a but coming?” Kate asked.
“Well, I found some old trucks at the impound lot,” he said. “A couple are black. One has a shitty paint job, and one is aqua blue. I was wondering if you wanted to go have a look.”
She bounced to her feet. “Let’s go.”
He shook his head and said, “You have the energy of ten people this morning. I wish you’d give me some of it.”
“Hey, I had a good night,” she said blithely, as she sailed on by.
Lilliana whispered in a low voice, “Getting laid is good for you.”
Kate snorted at that and kept on going. It was good for her, but it wasn’t the fact that she got laid as much as the fact that she had connected with somebody—more than just Simon too, her whole team—and, for the first time in a very long while, she hadn’t felt quite so alone. Nothing like the responsibility of all these deaths riding on her shoulders to make her feel like it was just more than she could handle. It’s not that she would give up, but some days she wondered if keeping track of all these bad guys was even doable.
Ten minutes later, she and Rodney were at the impound lot, and, as they walked through the front and dealt with the guy attending the lot, he soon had the paperwork in hand on the vehicles they were interested in.
“Do we know what brought this blue one in?” she asked him.
“It was found parked and abandoned over on the west side.”
She perked up. “Really? That’s definitely the one I want to see first.”
As they walked over to where it sat, she stopped, stared, and said, “Huh. I’m not sure it looks like the one we’re after though.” She stared at the mock-ups she had in her hand.
“It’s amazing how hard it is to tell them apart though, isn’t it?” Moving closer, the manager said, “That’s a similar truck but definitely a different model, … a different year.”
She shook her head. “No wonder people can’t tell us very much sometimes.”
“If you saw this one driving by the one you want,” he said, with a smile, “you’d have a hard time telling me what year it was.”
She studied the one in front of her and the picture of the one she wanted and said, “I’m somewhat well versed in cars, but I’m certainly not capable of telling these apart, though I’m not sure why.”
“Because this one has some parts from the other model year added on,” he said. “It’s fairly common, especially at the pick-and-pulls, using whatever you can get to put the vehicle back on the road. If it’s not quite as pretty as it once was, well, that’s just too bad,” he said, with a laugh.
She nodded. “Let me take a look at the other two of interest here.”
“Have a go at it, as you like,” he said. “I’ve got plenty of others to keep track of. Give a shout if you need anything.”
And, with Rodney at her side, they kept going from vehicle to vehicle. “None of them had quite the right dents in the front,” she said.
He nodded. “That’s what I was thinking, but we do have the VINs, and the license plates are still on two of them, so we’ve got that for our records.”
“But we didn’t have to come down here for that,” she said. “We could have just pulled the reports.”
“Yes, but sometimes seeing this in person is just as good as being out on the streets,” he reminded her.
She nodded.
“It was picked up because it was abandoned,” he said. “Have we cross-referenced it to any records?”
The guy came back out from his small cubicle, looking for them, and said, “Hey, the one that we looked at first, it’s just come back as stolen.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Well, in this case it’s unusual. It was stolen nearly four years ago.”
She turned and looked at the manager. “From where?”
“Arbutus Street,” he said.
She shook her head, frowning. “Interesting. And no sign of it in all these years?”
“Not until just now.”
She laughed. “I wonder what the chances are it was stolen from him again.” At that, Rodney looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. “Unless he’s ditching the vehicle. What if he came back to it, thinking it would be parked where he left it, only to find out that somebody had stolen it?”
Rodney looked at her and said, “Well, it’s a reach.”
“We’re always reaching,” she said comfortably. “It’s just a matter of if we’re reaching in the right direction or not.” She looked over at the officer. “Has anybody asked about this vehicle?”
“No, not yet,” he said. “Just you.”
She nodded. “Don’t release it until I get some forensics gathered, will you?”
He nodded.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” Rodney said. “If we’re wrong, that’s money down the tubes.”
“I know, but it’s the only one that even fits.”
“But it doesn’t fit,” he said.
She groaned. “You want me to just let it sit?”
“Considering the money and time?” He just shrugged.
“How will we know if we don’t do any tests?”
“Considering that we don’t have any evidence that this is even involved in any crime, yeah.”
“Well, it depends if Forensics can get those license plates back to me.” And, on that note, she phoned and, when she connected with Stoop she said, “What about those images with the license plate?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I was just writing up the report for you. I got three letters.”
He read them off, and, as she stood at the back of the truck, she turned with a grin and said, “Okay, now we have a good reason. Three of these plate numbers match.”
Rodney looked at her in shock. “You’re kidding.”
She nodded. “They’re sending me the report right now.”
“Well, in that case,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “let’s turn this sucker over to Forensics.”
*
Simon walked down one of the alleys, taking a shortcut in the downtown core and heading up around one of the warehouses, when pain slammed into his brain, and he almost fell. Gasping, he reached out his hands to support himself against the brick wall. He tried to slow and to even out his breathing, and soon he could almost straighten up again. As he leaned a shoulder against the wall, trying to control the pain that rushed through him, he heard a voice.
Just do it. Just do it.
He was so damn tired of that voice, that mocking, that he just couldn’t handle whatever the hell this was. In his mind he responded, Back the fuck off!
But the voice just continued in a chanting jeer. Simon figured the pain was in somebody’s head, somebody holding their own head and yelling and screaming at the voice, Just shut up. Stop, stop, stop, and then both voices disappeared.
He stared, not sure exactly what was going on, but it was almost enough to make him grab his own head. As he did place his hands on either side of his head, trying to still the pounding inside, he could suddenly see a river below him and somebody’s feet standing at the edge of a railing. He screamed at the top of his lungs, “No!”
Then he blacked out.
Chapter 11
When the phone rang, Kate wasn’t surprised to see it was Simon. “Hey,” she said. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice suggested he was anything but.
“Where are you?”
“At the hospital.”
She gasped. “What’s the matter?”
“Let’s just say I had a vision,” he said in low tones. “It didn’t work out so well for me.”
“Ah, crap, I hope it’s got nothing to do with me or my cases.”
“It’s the suicides,” he snapped. “Somebody is trying to pressure them into jumping.”
“Well, that’s what we were thinking, wasn’t it?” she asked curiously.
“Yes,
but now it’s a different case.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Now I know. God, I mean that I was in her head, as he was yelling at her.”
“You saw where she was?” Kate bolted upright.
“Well, I saw the water from the bridge railing through her point of view. I was screaming at her, No, no! Hesitated, lost the connection then, so I don’t know. I don’t know if she jumped or not.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing you were there. Maybe you stopped it,” she said, quietly pacing the big bullpen room, knowing that everybody else was listening in. She stepped out into the hallway. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I passed out though. Some kind passerby called an ambulance.”
“Jesus, do you want me to come?”
“No,” he said, disgust in his voice. “I’m just pissed off that it happened.”
“Well, sometimes there’s something out there bigger than us.”
“Is that you saying that?” he said in a mocking voice.
She winced because she heard the disgust in his voice. “Thank you for telling me,” she said quietly. “We’re working on this. We really are.”
“I know,” he said. “If I thought I had anything more to show you, I would.”
“Well, if you do find somebody else in this position, let me know as soon as it happens. Maybe you can convince them to not jump.”
“I don’t know, maybe,” he said. “I just wanted to let you know that this guy is active and is really pissing me off.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” she warned.
“Says you,” he replied. With that, he hung up.
She walked slowly back inside the bullpen and sat down, then grabbed her report and wrote down notes of what he’d said. It was tough. How did they catch somebody who was a phantom voice in Simon’s head, yet an obvious voice in somebody else’s? Was the manipulator using these promptings to make the depressed people crazy, thinking they had to jump, or was that what the pictures of loved ones with bullet holes in their foreheads were for? It didn’t necessarily make sense, unless it was a two-pronged approach, and that stopped her in her tracks. What were the chances that two people were doing this? Jesus, that would be horrible. Surely that couldn’t be. She stopped to look back at the latest suicide reports and then wrote down some musings.
“You okay?” Rodney asked.
“Yeah, just some problems.”
“Anything we can help with?”
“Not yet,” she said in a low voice. “Soon, maybe.”
*
Simon continued his day, working hard and shutting down the devil voice in his head. As such, Simon went from one of his rehab projects to another, again and again. By the time four o’clock rolled around, he was tired and ever-so-slightly wet from what appeared to be the damp atmosphere around him. The rain was holding off, spitting every once in a while, matching his mood.
That voice saying, Just do it, grew louder and louder. Sometimes it seemed to back off; then other times it seemed to punch in hard and fast. It made no sense.
Simon stood in front of the huge building on Hastings and shook his head, trying to regain his focus. “We’re behind here. What do you think?” Simon asked his project manager, Simon’s tone caustic. “Every day we’re behind costs more money.”
“I get it,” Francis said, “but we’re having trouble getting some of the materials we need. A lot of the plumbing supplies didn’t show up.”
Simon looked at him, his stare flat. “I get it. Not your problem.”
“But it is your problem because we can’t get the material,” the project manager snapped.
Simon nodded. “What’s the new ETA?”
“We’re fourteen days behind.”
Inwardly Simon winced. Because fourteen days was fourteen days of expenses, extra labor, material costs, leases, and interest. The list went on and on, never seemed to quit. “Well, that’s your one freebie,” he said. “Let’s make sure there aren’t any others.” And, with that, he turned and left, headed to the next place.
As he walked, the irritating Realtor got back to him finally, after complete silence for days.
“Simon, you drive a hard deal,” she snapped into the phone.
He stopped and looked up at the gray sky above him, feeling a raindrop hitting his eyebrow he swore.
“What’s the matter?” she said in alarm.
“It’s a shit day, and I’m not interested in listening to your shit story.”
“Not my shit story,” she snapped, “the owners.”
“Look. Either he takes the deal or he doesn’t. I don’t care,” he said. “It’s not a day to push my buttons.”
“Wow,” she said, “you are having a shit day.” An almost conciliatory tone was in her voice, as if to say, Hey, sorry. Didn’t mean to come across so aggressive.
But Simon wasn’t up for it. “All I’m saying is,” he said, “that was my offer, and we have nothing to discuss otherwise.” With that, he hung up. He really didn’t need to listen to her or to them.
He carried on, walking to the next job that he needed to review, only to find that his project manager wasn’t there and that his overseer was standing outside the third floor on scaffolding, yelling at somebody. Simon called up at the supervisor on this rehab, who noticed him and came down. It took twenty minutes for him to get on the ground floor, and he looked like he was in a hell of a temper.
“If it isn’t good news, I really don’t want to hear it,” Simon snapped.
“Well, good luck with that,” he said. “Half the crew didn’t show up today.”
“Why is that?” Simon closed his eyes, praying for patience.
“They all belong to the same family, and they’re at some bloody festival.”
Simon just stared, and William raised both hands in frustration. “What the hell, I don’t know,” he said. “Nobody told me anything. I came to work—fat, dumb, and happy, expecting to see a full crew on the job—and nobody’s here.”
“Well, hell,” Simon said. “Who were you yelling at up there then?”
“Somebody else on the crew,” he said. “I probably shouldn’t have yelled at him. He’s likely to walk on me too, but right now I couldn’t care less.”
“I get it,” Simon said. “Some days are just like that, aren’t they?”
“You’re not kidding,” he said. “So our progress is nil today. We haven’t got much done, but I’m trying to focus those we have here on making some progress on something.”
Simon replied, “I know a whole reset on the plumbing was needed here, right?”
“Yeah, and the plumbers are missing today.”
“Of course they are. Wiring?”
“They aren’t supposed to come in until after the plumbing. They’ve done 80 percent of it and need to come back in after the plumbers are done and gone.”
“And normally that’s not an issue.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said, “but, in this case, they were in on top of each other.”
“And where is my project manager who is supposed to be coordinating all that? Did he go to the festival too?”
“No, sick,” he said.
“Got it,” Simon replied. “Too sick to see the planning committee?”
“Oh, hell, is that today? Well, I guess I could spend some time at city hall,” he said. “You know how much I’ll love that.”
Simon laughed. “Yeah, but it’ll make my day, thinking of you down there, arguing with them.” The two men shared a chuckle, and, with that at least easing some of the tension, Simon turned and headed off to his next project. The way things were going today, he should probably just go home and tell them all to take a hike. And, true enough, he got to the next job, just in time to see more chaos happening. “What the hell is going on today?”
“It’s a fucking full moon,” his project manager said, glaring at the building.
“Well, do you want to go in and show me?”
The tour on this site proved to be just as disappointing and discouraging as the others. Materials didn’t arrive; crew didn’t show up, and some welds that had been very necessary and should have been up to code had snapped.
Simon just shook his head as he stared upward. “What a shitty day,” Simon muttered under his breath. Feeling the weight of all the decisions and the financial burdens of all the things he’d seen today, he looked at his contractor, who shrugged.
“Tomorrow’s another day, huh?”
“It needs to be,” Simon replied. “It needs to be a damn sight better than today.” Taking his leave, he strolled down the street, taking a shortcut and coming out on the far side, where one of his favorite restaurants was located. Just as he went to cross the road, words slammed into his brain.
Just do it.
He shuddered, and, rather than forcing himself across the street, he grabbed a nearby bus stop bench and collapsed. A woman stopped and looked at him, but he just gave her a wave and a half smile, then shuddered as the pain flooded through his system.
He buried his face in both hands, rested his elbows on his knees, and told the world to F-off. Leave me alone. I don’t need this.
But instead the voice chanted in his mind, Just do it, just do it, just do it.
He couldn’t even begin to confirm if this was something happening in real time or some hanger-on from some other damn energy, if in the present or from the past. He wished to God he had learned more from his grandmother, but he hadn’t. On the contrary, he’d been too busy ignoring it all, stomping it down, and hoping it wouldn’t happen again.
Seeing those abused children had been devastating. Saving the one had helped a lot, and putting the entire ring behind bars where they couldn’t hurt children anymore had been a supreme ego boost. But more than that had been the sense of finally controlling something and stopping a travesty. Something that he couldn’t do before, and nobody had helped him back then.
But now, here, it was happening all over again. Not children but other vulnerable people, in the sense of it being anybody struggling with depression or other mental health issues. At least that’s what he’d figured out so far. It didn’t mean he was right by any means, but it definitely meant crap was coming down that he didn’t have a clue how to deal with.