Wish List

by Derek Powell

hours. Where were you last week, Mr. Swanson?”

  “I told you. I was at home all week, with my wife.”

  “Lidia Swanson?”

  “Yes.”

  The inspector produced another piece of paper, one Tom recognized all too well.

  “This is a copy of Lidia Swanson's death certificate. It's dated December of last year.”

  Tom stared at it, lying there in black and white on the table. “No. No one's supposed to remember that. She came back. She was taking a shower.”

  “We searched your home, Mr. Swanson. We found some very interesting things, but there was no one else in the house.”

  “She came back,” Tom said. It was barely a whisper.

  “Is there anyone else who can confirm your whereabouts this week, Mr. Swanson?”

  Tom shook his head. “The pantry and refrigerator were stocked. Telemarketers trembled in fear at the thought of calling, and I filed the papers to get off work two months ago,” Tom said, repeating what Gene the Genie had told him a week ago.

  “So you deny driving your car to Big Sky, Montana?”

  “I never left my house this week. Well, once, just to...”

  “To what?”

  To test drive a new Jaguar that may have just been a figment of his imagination.

  “Just to drive around town.”

  “Did you stop anywhere? Buy anything? Any receipt, credit or debit card transactions will at least prove that you were still in town.”

  But they hadn't stopped anywhere. The Jag had a full tank of gas.

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Okay.” The inspector rubbed his temples. “You're not making this easy, so let's move on again. Where did you go to school?”

  “California Technical Institute. Graduate degree in computer science.”

  Inspector Evans nodded. “And where do you work?”

  “Sunfield Software, here in Redding.”

  “You're a computer programmer.”

  “Not quite. I'm a program designer. I design the programs, some one else writes them. We make software for banking systems.”

  “So you could have helped create the software that automatically charged me thirty-five dollars when I accidentally overdrew my checking account by seventy-three cents?”

  Tom shrugged. “Could be,” he said.

  If the inspector was upset over that, he didn't show it. “And you didn't go to work at all? Didn't call or make contact for any reason?”

  “No.”

  The inspector sighed. “Okay, then. What about this?'' He took out another pair of photographs. “Gene Aladdin's apartment building has security cameras, Mr. Swanson. I want you to take a look at these next photos very carefully.”

  Tom took the first one. It was his black Volkswagen, parked on a street he didn't recognize.

  “Did I mention that the cameras are better quality than most? Can you see the license plate in that photo, Mr. Swanson?”

  He could. It was almost magically clear, considering it was a nighttime shot.

  “That was taken Tuesday night, around 8:00 PM. The next one was taken just a few seconds later.”

  Tom flipped the pictures. A man who could have been Tom's brother was getting out of the car. The same camera that managed to capture the license plate with perfect clarity somehow managed to catch the man's face with a shadow across it. The Cal Tech logo was highly visible on the sweatshirt.

  “That's the man,” Tom said.

  “Pardon? Which man?”

  “The man who came to my house on Saturday. That's the man who called himself Gene.”

  “I'm confused, Mr. Swanson. I thought you said he looked like this,” the inspector pointed to the first photo of the short, skinny old man.

  “He... grew.”

  “He grew?”

  “That doesn't make sense, does it?” Tom asked.

  “No. It does not. Nor does it explain why a man, roughly your size and weight, driving your car, and wearing a hoodie from your alma mater was outside Mr. Aladdin's apartment on the night he was murdered.”

  “You can't prove it was me,” Tom said, looking hard at the shadows that obscured the face in the picture.

  Inspector Evans handed him a third surveillance photograph. The man in the photograph looked like he was putting coins into a parking meter.

  “That meter rarely gets used, so it's only emptied once a week, Mr. Swanson. On Tuesdays, in fact. There were only two quarters inside when the Montana Police checked it on Wednesday morning. We just sent them a copy of your prints. Their computers showed a perfect match for thumbprints lifted off both of those quarters.”

  Because Tom had traded them for ten million dollars and a new Jaguar. He'd handed them to Gene the Genie, who made them vanish into thin air.

  Another picture. The man was getting into the car, no longer wearing the Cal Tech hoodie, but dressed in a black T-Shirt. The Star Wars logo on the shirt seemed to glow under the street lights, but the man's face was still obscured by shadow.

  Tom looked down at his own shirt, black with the Star Wars logo, identical to the one in the photograph.

  “Montana Police searched the property and found this in a Dumpster.” The inspector laid down a photo of Tom's sweatshirt, stained with blood.

  “These were in the pocket.” Two more pictures, a blood-soaked wad of paper towels, and the German steel paring knife that Tom had last seen the day it sank into his palm.

  “How did you hurt your hand, Mr. Swanson? We don't have a fancy crime lab like you see on television, but when we get the results of the DNA tests back, are we going to find this is your blood? And how exactly do you explain a set of knives in your kitchen, exactly like this one, that seems to be missing the smallest knife out of its neat little butcher block?”

  Tom slumped in his chair. “The lamp was real,” he said. It sounded as ridiculous then as it had ever sounded.

  “Pardon me?”

  “The lamp that I ordered from the mystery shop. It was real.”

  “Let me make sure I understand what you're saying, Mr. Swanson. You bought a genuine magic lamp, with a real Genie inside, for $87.16 through eBay?”

  “It didn't get many bids. I don't think anyone believed it.”

  “But you expect me to believe it?”

  “I'm not sure I still do, at this point,” Tom said.

  Inspector Evans nodded, and began picking up his photographs. “If I were you, Mr. Swanson, I'd wish for a very good lawyer.”

  “I do,” Tom said. “I wish for a very good lawyer.”

  The door to the interrogation room opened. Officer Martin stuck his head in and whispered something to the inspector.

  “Your attorney is here, Mr. Swanson,” Inspector Evans said.

  No one except Tom seemed to find it odd that he had only asked for an attorney just that second, and yet one had arrived.

  It was, of course, Gene the Genie, impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit, sporting a Rolex and an expensive briefcase.

  “Give us a minute please, Inspector,” Gene said.

  Inspector Evans nodded and closed the door on his way out. Gene leaned casually against the wall in a very un-lawyer-like pose. “This is quite the mess you have here, Tom, my boy.”

  Tom stood, pulling against the limit of his handcuff. “What did you do? Where's Lidia?”

  “She's safe and happy, Tom. She's really a very attractive woman. I can see why you'd go through all the effort to get her back. I've become quite attached to her, myself. 'Enamored' is a good word.”

  “Why did you do this to me?” Tom tugged on the handcuff chain, but the table was solid.

  “I have my reasons, Tom. It's important for you to know that I can get you out of this with a mere thought. Inspector Evans will come back in, bowing and groveling. 'Terribly sorry, Mr. Swanson. Huge mistake, sir. You're free to go. My apologies,' and all that.”

  “Then do it!”<
br />
  “I said I could, not that I would.”

  “You son of a bitch. What do you want? You want another quarter?”

  “Oh, it's not that simple this time, Tom. I already have what I want, and you were the price. A real bargain, I'd say.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “Token payments, remember? I'm out of the lamp for a while. I'm free to have some fun in this world without a master to call me back any time soon. I traded my captivity for yours.”

  “I still own the lamp,” Tom said. “I wish I'd never bought it. I wish I'd never met you. I wish Gene Aladdin was still alive. I wish...”

  “Nice try, but it won't work. My lamp is downstairs, on a shelf in a plastic bag. Do you know what that bag says on it? It's stamped with the word, 'Evidence,' and underneath that, 'Property of Redding Police Department.' Since you're going to jail for the rest of your life, I figure it'll be 50 or 60 years before it sees the light of day again.”

  “You're insane. There's no way I'm letting you get away with this. All I need to do is convince one person, just one cop with access to the evidence room.”

  “Good luck with that, Tom.” Gene picked up his briefcase and moved to knock on the door. “Enjoy your maximum security confinement. Maybe you can write a computer program to keep track of all the times you drop the soap.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Don't worry about Lidia, Tom. She'll live forever. I'll treat her like a Goddess. Anything she can dream will be real. She'll be very happy with me, I promise.”

  Gene the Genie, dressed like a lawyer, banged on the door of the interrogation room. Inspector Evans opened it.

  “I can not, in good conscience, represent this man,” Gene announced.

  “I understand, and I don't blame you,” the inspector said. “We got his full confession on