Chapter 21

Richie had recovered surprisingly well from his stint as Jennifer Chance’s overcoat. Then again, he’d probably eaten more vegetables in that stretch of time than he had in the entirety of his life. His clothes were rumpled, but new. He’d grown a bushy, reddish beard in the couple months since I’d last seen him. It really needed a trim. And if he seemed a little young to be sharing digs with a bunch of octogenarians? Well…he was. He and I were actually the same age.

“Did you come to see my new place?” he asked me eagerly.

“Uh…yeah.”

“Cool! And who’s—?” It was like the subconscious part of his brain clicked in a half-second before the thinking part. His face fell. His mouth worked. He hung there for a moment, dismayed. It looked like someone had pulled out his batteries and the thought would go unfinished. But eventually his mouth caught up with his mind, and he said in disgust, “Stefan.” He looked from Stefan to me and back again with his whole upper body, and then asked very loudly, “Are you guys having sex? I’m totally gonna tell Agent Marks.”

“One,” I said, “that’s none of your business. And two, no.”

“Oh, good. Agent Marks is pretty boring but I like him a lot better. Come take a look at my new TV. Laura sent me it. She sends me a fruit basket every week, too. When you see her, tell her they make baskets with good stuff like brownies and cookies. She probably doesn’t know.” He led us to another ponderous, wood-paneled room where several elderly folks were parked in front of a Green Acres rerun on a jumbotron that took up the entire wall. “It didn’t fit in my room so Laura had it put in here. But it’s totally my TV.” He said this loud enough to ensure everyone in the room heard it. “I’m sharing it because I want to.”

“Okay,” I said. “Looks like everything’s going good on your end. So I’ll just…uh….”

“Funny,” Stefan cut in. “How obsessed you are with television.”

“Who isn’t?” Richie countered…way too defensively.

Stefan smiled with the satisfaction of a phlebotomist hitting a deep vein on the very first jab. “Given your history with TVs, I’d think you’d be a little more cautious. Some people might even give it up altogether and take up something exotic, like reading.”

“Shut up, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Stefan’s eyes twinkled with delight. “I thought the TV was how Mr. Purdy got hold of you.”

“Screw you!” Richie turned to flounce dramatically away, but thanks to his shitty peripheral vision, ended up careening off a marble-topped table. That was definitely gonna leave a mark. He stumbled, recovered, and took off. I considered going after him, but Jacob needed me back at the FPMP. Besides, I’d only be torturing him by forcing him to keep socializing.

As we both headed out, I asked, “Who’s Mr. Purdy?”

“Richie’s imaginary childhood friend.”

“And you knew about this, how?”

“Read his file at Camp Hell when Director Sanchez left me alone in his office to go take a dump.” And I’ll bet the urgent need to evacuate his bowels just so happened to come upon him with no help at all from Stefan. “You’d think the head of the program would be more careful with his things.” Stefan smiled to himself. “But no. It was just laying there on top of a pile of receipts and unopened mail.”

I couldn’t have resisted looking, either. But that was beside the point. “So you knew about the fetal alcohol syndrome and you never mentioned it to me.”

“Pretty sure I told you. Guess who really is as dumb as he acts? Ring any bells?”

No. In fact, it only made me wonder how it was that he could remember a conversation he’d had more than a decade ago with less effort than it took me to recall what I’d said last week.

Stefan said, “Richie claimed this Mr. Purdy spoke to him through the TV set. Of course, that was just about the time the Poltergeist movie came out, so he adopted that story to try and get attention. My guess? His family wanted to make him someone else’s problem, so when Heliotrope Station came recruiting, they backed up his story, grabbed that brass ring, and held on for dear life.”

We stepped out onto the street. The winter wind pelleted the side of my face with snow. I watched the traffic lurch by without really seeing it. And when I failed to agree with him, Stefan added, “If you want to feel bad for Richie Duff, that’s up to you. But believe me, if you had any sense of what he’s like inside—an obnoxious, entitled brat—you wouldn’t waste your sympathy.”

The black town car that had been waiting down the block pulled up, Stefan climbed in, and the vehicle slipped into traffic and disappeared. As I turned toward my car, my anger ebbed, and that old pang welled up inside me again. 

Funny how much better I liked him when he wasn’t there.

* * *

The last word I’d use to describe Jacob is boring. I suppose that’s because he mashed his tongue down my throat within thirty seconds of making my acquaintance. Shenanigans like that are bound to leave an impression. I found him in his office, looming over his research like a master strategist bent on finding the flaw in the enemy’s army that would carry our side to victory. He glanced up and swung that laser focus, momentarily, to me.

I almost said, I wouldn’t finger Garcia for this…then, of course, Stefan’s I’d do him comment sprang to mind. So I scrambled for a moment, then came up with, “I don’t think Garcia’s our guy.” Which sounded like we’d been scoping him out for a threesome but opted to go home alone.

Leave it to Stefan to discombobulate me without even being present.

Thankfully, Jacob didn’t notice any awkwardness on my part, either that or he was gracious enough to ignore it. “We got the same feeling from Agent Lipton. So now I need to figure out, who else would have the motive, the opportunity, and the access?”

“Between the chips in our guns, the GPS on our phones, the cameras at every turn, can’t you just feed the time and location into the computer and figure out who was in the stairwell with Colleen Frank?”

 “You’d think so,” he said. “But the building is huge. Not every last inch of it is monitored, only critical access points. Most agents—the techs and the admins—don’t carry unless they’re in the field. Pulling the GPS will take some time….”

“We’re a building full of spies—how can we not know who was in the stairwell?”

“I pulled a log of the keycard use. But human nature being what it is, people hold open doors for each other all the time. Especially if it’s a fellow FPMP agent.”

“An inside job for sure.” My stomach felt queasy. “And if it was the same killer who lost their bullet in Andy Parsons, maybe they’re getting more careful about the evidence they’re leaving around.” We both stared down at the personnel lists and timetables on Jacob’s desk. “They’re connected, right? A bizarre manifesto comes out of a printer, two of the people with access to the machine turn up dead. Colleen didn’t know anything about it—she told me so after she died—but maybe that didn’t matter. All she’d have to do is walk in on someone with the wrong piece of paper in their hand, and that could make her a target. And as much as I hate to admit it since I couldn’t stand the guy, the same thing can be said for Andy.”

“Either Garcia or Lipton could have pulled it off,” Jacob said. “The logs show they were somewhere in the building when Frank was killed. Garcia knows enough about surveillance to dodge all the right cameras, and Lipton is a pro at blending in and deflecting attention.”

“And yet they each put on a convincing show of a grief-stricken coworker in front of a high-level empath, so that puts us back at square one.”

Jacob nodded. “The question is, if they didn’t do it, what if they’re targets too? Should we have someone on them?”

How weird would it be to have all the FPMP babysitters reassigned to monitoring each other? If ever a conversation with Lisa would come in handy…now there was a depressing thought.

I glanced back at the logs and wondered if it showed where Carl had hurried off to just before Agent Frank had her fateful meeting with the stairwell railing, but I quashed the thought before I said something damning I could never take back. Of course, it couldn’t have been Carl. He was…Carl. If he was capable of murder, he’d have strangled Richie long ago. I opted to keep my concerns to myself for the time being. Even a casual question as to his whereabouts could very easily send Jacob down a path we’d all end up regretting. “Anything else you need from me?”

“Not until I figure out our next move.” Jacob brushed the side of my hand with his knuckle. Not a secret signal. Just a touch. “But thanks.”

I headed for the lunchroom to grab a quick bite before anything else vied for my attention. Back at the Fifth Precinct, it was always Zigler who made sure we ate. Here, the food was tempting enough to make even me prioritize mealtime. So I hadn’t thought much further than the chicken Florentine when I hit the staff dining room. And I was surprised to see Patrick waving vigorously at me from the corner.

“Cashing in my rain check!”

Huh. I didn’t think people actually did that. Maybe “rain check” wasn’t actually shorthand for “I prefer not to spend any time with you, ever.”

I sat. Spread my cloth napkin on my lap. Ate. And beside me, Patrick fidgeted with the urge to chat. “What?” I finally asked, between bites. 

He leaned in close and said confidentially, “I saw the report on Colleen Frank. You seriously spoke with her after she fell?”

I wanted to deny it, but the guy had access to Laura’s files. Hell, he also knew how many tabs of Auracel I could crank through in a month. “There was contact,” I said vaguely.

“What did she say? Anything more about the leak?”

“She wasn’t exactly in a position to assist with the investigation. What with her brains on the railing.”

“That’s so intense. I mean, that’s like horror movie stuff. Right?”

Evidently he hadn’t yet read about the flailing autopsied body under the plastic. Then again, those of us who’d been there were all as dry and clinical as humanly possible in our report so as not to paint too lurid a picture. “Not really.” I shrugged. “You see enough of something, you get used to it.”

“And could you make out what happened?”

“Everything I got from Agent Frank is in the report.”

“So she didn’t know who pushed her? How is that possible? Wouldn’t you think that once you die, your mind opens up to the intelligence of the universe?”

Only if you were special, like Miss Mattie. “Not necessarily.”

“It’s all so intense.” He looked a little queasy. “You talked to someone who died. I mean, wow. She was dead. Like…dead.”

This reaction must’ve been the reason I didn’t normally fill people in on my talent. Most folks aren’t going to respond like Jacob, with enthusiasm and a hard-on. I figured I’d better downplay it before I gave the guy nightmares. “Yeah, it’s a real treat. So how was your day, lock anyone out of anything important?” 

“I’m getting better. There’s just so much to learn, it’s a little overwhelming. Plus I need to go practice at the range—care to join me after work?”

Wait, had he seen my marksmanship needed to improve…or was he coming on to me? I sized him up as I napkinned some spinach off the side of my mouth. He didn’t seem to be flirting. I might not generally be all that quick on the uptake, but once I ask myself the question, Does that guy want to touch my dick? I can usually tell. I didn’t get a gay vibe from Patrick. He and I just had a new-guy bond. And I would probably benefit from making friends, especially one with access to all of Laura’s stuff. Unfortunately…. 

“Sorry. Working double-duty until I get a break in either one of my assignments.”

His shoulders slumped. Why were friendship waters so freaking difficult to navigate? No wonder I was such a lone wolf. I didn’t know how to act. We sat there awkwardly for a moment, and then, belatedly, I offered, “Rain check?”

Patrick smiled. “Definitely.”