When the man just looked at me, I walked over – the pain getting stronger with every step – and flipped the switch myself.
“Mr. Peeler,” I said.
He looked at me for a moment with dead eyes, then the baby hiccupped again. “George,” he said. Uncomfortable baby thoughts floated across the room, underscored by his complex grief.
I nodded. “I’m a Level Eight telepath. The department sent me over. Do you mind if I talk to your son?”
“Why?”
I took a breath, reminded myself to be patient. I could afford to be patient; let’s face it, this wasn’t going to be fun. Watching a five year old’s view of his mother dying did not sound good.
“He might have seen something that will help us find your wife’s killer,” I said.
George winced, looked away. Then back at me. “I’ll have to be here,” he said. “If he gets upset, it’s over.” Grief came off of him in waves.
“I understand,” I said, in my best soothing voice, not that I expected it to do anything but keep the situation from getting worse. With the baby there I didn’t want to project anything emotional.
I felt Cherabino’s mind settle behind me, Wiggles following. She was maybe standing right outside the kitchen. “Be careful,” she murmured.
I took a breath and sat down at the table with the kid. He drew back from me, the remaining bite of the peanut butter sandwich dropping to the floor.
“You probably don’t remember me,” I said quietly, trying not to be scary. “But I was there last night, with the police. I’d like to talk to you about what happened.” I wasn’t good with kids, even when I’d been one, and the Guild didn’t get anyone until they were at least nine or ten. Five was very young, much younger than I knew what to do with.
Vague thoughts like blobby birds flitted across his mind, with strong snaking emotions. That was all I could see and still keep my distance in Mindspace; I would give him space, unless he gave me permission.
The kid looked at his dad, who nodded encouragement. Then he looked back at me. His energy was wary.
“I’d like to talk to you about what happened,” I said. “I’d like, if you’ll let me, to help you remember.”
He looked away. Climbed down to the floor, going after the leftover peanut butter sandwich.
The dad looked on suspiciously as I moved down to floor level as well. I sat down where the dad could see both me and the kid clearly. Then I tried to figure out what the next step was.
The kid put the bite of sandwich in his mouth, chewing messily, peanut butter leaking out – he pushed it back in with a hand. A smear of it and purple jelly sat on the floor. He didn’t look at me.
Well, this wasn’t going very well. Maybe he needed a minute, to see I was okay. But the dad was looking at me closely, and I just didn’t have the patience to sit on a dirty floor for hours. Time to ask the question a different way.
“We need your help,” I told the kid. “The bad man – we’re going to find him and lock him away. But I need access to your memories – I need you to remember.”
The kid looked up, a small glance, then another. He smeared the peanut butter across the floor.
I waited. Finally I prompted: “the bad man?”
“Will he hurt me now?” the boy said very, very quietly.
“We’ll find him,” I promised, hoping it was true. “He won’t hurt anyone ever again. Not anymore. We’ve got a lot of strong, clever policemen who will make sure he won’t.” I paused. “Do you know what a telepath is?”
The boy frowned. He looked at his dad, who made a gesture. Then he looked back at me. “Someone who can see… in your head… like a lightbulb.”
Not a bad comparison, actually. “Yes. I’d like you to let me see in your head so we can get more information about the bad man.”
“My head?” he looked disturbed at the concept, which was both good news and bad news for me. Good news because it was clear he understood what I was asking. Bad because, well, he didn’t have to agree.
“No,” he said.
Wiggles came into the kitchen like an emotional cloud of mustard gas covering everything I could see. Jake looked up, way up. Wiggles scooped up the boy in his arms, and I bit my tongue shoring up shields hurriedly against the Mindspace pollution.
Cherabino, Bull, and the other cop were now standing around the doorway to the kitchen. The baby had started to cry again, little whimpers the father was struggling to soothe. Feeling very vulnerable at floor level, I struggled to my feet, my lungs panting a little from the cigarettes.
The boy’s body language melted into Wiggles’s arms, trust, and he started to suck his thumb.
Wiggles pulled the thumb out of the little boy’s mouth gently. “Now, you need to talk to the telepath here.” He shifted the boy’s weight. “It’s really important.”
The baby started screaming, and I winced.
Jake put his thumb back in his mouth and shook his head. Great. I had a second ‘no.’ Legally and ethically, I couldn’t ignore it.
Of course I had to pick now to have scruples, when not less than four cops and a concerned dad were staring at me. When everything was riding on what this kid knew. I had to pick now to have ethics. I sighed. “No. No I can’t do that. He’s a kid. He’s clearly said no, and I have to respect his decision. He’s been through something probably none of us here in the room can imagine – I’m not going to push him to go through something he doesn’t want.”
Various levels of shock and disapproval emanated from the adults in the room and Jake burrowed deeper into Wiggles’s shoulder. Cherabino’s mouth set in a hard line. Cop killer, her mind flashed at me. We have to find the cop killer. It could have been her. The baby screamed like the end of the world had come, and I winced.
“This is a waste of time,” Bull said, loud enough to be heard over the baby. His tone was combative and angry, but an odd sense of relief came off of him in Mindspace.
And that relief seemed wrong.
“If Jake doesn’t want it, we’re not going to do it,” George said, in the distracted-but-firm tone of a guy dealing with screaming in one hand and reality in the other.
Wiggles’s mouth pressed into a hard line. “Where are you going?” he asked Bull, who had turned. His voice cracked hard, like a whip.
Bull stood up straight – tall, much taller than anyone else in the room. “This is a waste of time,” he said. “There’s work to do and I’m not standing here while the real work sits by.” And again, the strong sense of relief came off him, relief and vindication. He turned and walked out – with Wiggles close behind him.
Never one to give up a free show, I followed. Cherabino and Bull’s partner completed the set, as we walked through the living room, outside the front door, and out to the lawn, where the damp stuffed rabbit was molding from the rain.
Wiggles stood in front of Bull, blocking his way on the sidewalk. Bull, jaw hard, moved past him.
Wiggles grabbed his arm again to stop him. “Your dicking around caused this. If George hadn’t—”
“Let go of my arm,” Bull said, his hand on his gun. “Now.” His partner stood up behind him.
Wiggles dropped the arm but didn’t move out of the way. “If they hadn’t been on the rocks, Jake wouldn’t have been there.”
Regret like shadows passed across Bull’s face. “That was not - Jake’s not a bad kid. He shouldn’t have been there.” He glanced around, saw me. Went back to Wiggles. “Looks like your teep didn’t do crap for you.” A pause. “It’s time for you to give it up and come do real work.” He was so guarded – too guarded – so that I couldn’t get any read from him except that odd sense of relief.
Something smelled off about the situation, and my instincts from the interview room came out in full force.
Just to see what would happen, I twisted the tiger’s tail. “You mean like financial records? The killer was a professional; odds are the guy who hired him was close to her. We could go over e
veryone’s financial records, see if George is holding out on us. See if you guys are holding out on us.”
“Are you really accusing officers of being involved?” Bull spat. Anger came from nearly everyone in the room.
Their anger and distaste hung in the air, then Wiggles shrugged. “An accountant’s not a bad idea.”
Bull’s partner, a short man, frowned. “If you need to eliminate suspects, do it, but don’t slow the real work down. We’ve got limited time to find this guy. He could already be on his way out of town if he’s really a gunman.”
“This is a waste of time,” Bull said, mind still guarded, closed. “Peeler had eighteen cases still in court. Two of them grand theft auto – one from Gwinnett. Maybe she picked up the wrong car, got Fiske’s attention. Annoyed somebody with powerful friends. Everybody knows cops don’t hire killers.”
Cops don’t hire killers? The words were out of place, like a yellow flashing light above his head.
I smiled. Looks like I would get my rabbit trick after all. Next to me, Cherabino frowned, thinking.
“I’m a Level Eight telepath,” I told Bull. “Do you know what that means?”
“What?”
“It means I know the truth,” I riffed. Interviewers could bluff; in fact it was encouraged. I could almost see the blocky table between us.
“What are you getting at?” Bull’s partner asked.
Bull’s eyes darted between me and Cherabino, Wiggles and his partner. The partner took a step back, tension in the air confusing him. Bull said, “I was just saying, cops don’t hire killers.”
“But you did,” I said, certainty riding every syllable. “You hired someone you knew, someone you knew would put us off your trail. You hired him to strangle her in a bad part of town. But you didn’t know the kid would be there.”
Bull took a step back; I stepped forward. His hand went for his gun; I prepared my mind to dart in and hold him immobile. One gun wasn’t a threat to me, not holstered; I could shut down his movements before he could pull the trigger. I enveloped his mind in Mindspace, prepared…
“This is ridiculous,” Bull’s partner said. “Your teep is smoking something.”
“Cops don’t hire killers,” Bull repeated, like a mantra. He didn’t say he didn’t do it; he couldn’t. Faced with the certainty of a telepath and a lie, he just couldn’t say it.
“Give me your gun,” Wiggles said, his voice cracking like a whip.
“This is ridiculous,” the partner repeated, his voice suddenly wavering. He looked back and forth between them.
“The kid’s mine,” Bull said, angry tone. “Not Jake, the baby. The baby that fucker named Georgette. What kind of crap name is Georgette?” And his mind opened one, small degree, his panicked motivation falling out like a candy from a dispenser.
And the rabbit trick arrived – I knew how to get the confession. “She was going to transfer,” I said. “Move halfway across the country. And tell the truth about your secret.”
“The baby’s not a secret,” Wiggles said. “Even George knows. Not that this dick knows anything about loyalty.”
My eyes stayed on Bull. “That’s not the secret.”
Now he took three steps back, four, terror and shame coming from him in tidal waves. His hand went to his gun – and I swooped in.
His fingers were frozen, gun halfway from his holster. His mind was terrified. And, in a pocket of quiet time, I spoke to him: Tell the truth about what happened. Tell the truth or I’ll tell them how you cheated on your detective exams. I’ll go into details.
It was Bull’s one, horrible secret. The one thing he that shamed of more than any other – and the one thing that would strip him of everything he loved. Also the only detail I could corroborate on my own – that, I could prove, without a doubt, from the record.
I held onto his hands, keeping them frozen like heavy blocks out of his control. But, one small step at a time, I let go of the rest of him – including his mouth.
“Tell them or I will,” I said.
In my periphery, I saw Wiggles go for his own gun, Cherabino for hers in return. The partner was stepping away, stepping away.
“Let go of him,” Wiggles said, fear in his voice. “You’re…”
“Tell them.” My voice was implacable. But my mind was gentle, no suggestions, no coercion. My heart beat hard; I wouldn’t be able to stop Wiggles from shooting me, not like this. “Tell them, okay?”
Bull collapsed in on himself. “She was going to tell.”
I waited, and Wiggles’s gun wavered.
“She was going to tell them. Said I was a bastard, that I couldn’t see the kid, not anymore. And… so I asked for an introduction. I paid him. And he said he’d take care of it. Jake wasn’t supposed to be there.” He looked up, at Wiggles. “I swear to you, Jake wasn’t supposed to be there.” Guilt rolled over him for that, but even still, all he felt for his former lover was… anger.
I’d had a lover betray me too, once. I understood – to a point. I hadn’t killed Kara. And she hadn’t been married.
“Take his gun,” I told Cherabino, focus still on Bull, mind still holding. “Careful of his hands, they’ll be stiff.”
The partner stood in her way, confused but standing up against the outsider.
“It was you?” Wiggles asked, voice intense. He thought about shooting Bull – thought hard enough I let go of the hold on Bull’s mind – but instead, Wiggles hit him hard across the face with the butt of his gun.
Pain echoed in Mindspace, and Bull fell over. His gun, in front of him.
Wiggles picked it up. “What’s the secret?” he asked me, his own gun not pointing at me anymore, but the threat still there.
I was silent.
“Damn teeps.” He shook his head, disgusted. Looked at Bull’s partner. “You going to read him the rights or should I?” he asked.
Bull’s partner sighed. “I’ll do it.”
“The killer was definitely a professional,” Cherabino said, over a huge container of pasta in the department break room that night. “He’s been linked to at least six other cases in the metro area.” Day shift was over, and we’d ordered Italian takeout. Or, more accurately, I’d ordered it for us both, the good stuff, the expensive stuff with real meat. It was heaven on a plate.
“How did Bull meet him?” I asked. “I mean, you don’t get a list of hired killers when you join the department.” I tried again to cut the osso bucco with the plastic knife without tearing the cardboard box it had come in. I managed one, small, strip of meat and sighed.
Cherabino finished chewing and shrugged. “Guess he knew a snitch with a connection. We’ll find the hired gun eventually.”
I speared a roasted potato wedge with the plastic fork. When it fell off, speared it again, more carefully. “I still can’t get over the fact that he hired someone else to kill her. I mean, I get it. Someone leaves you, you’re angry. I’ve been there. But killing the woman? Or, that whole extra step of getting someone else to do it? How do you get that far down the road?”
She looked down at her plate, sadness, pain and cynicism mixing around in her head. “It’s a damn stupid thing to do. I went to academy with that guy – I didn’t think he could…” She trailed off. “What was his secret?”
I was silent.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“Compared to murder, it doesn’t matter,” I said.
“I guess you never really know someone.” She looked sad, incredibly sad in that moment, and the emotions inside her cut through me like a one-two punch. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything…
“There’s one garlic roll left,” I told her, desperately. “It’s yours if you want it.” I pushed the cardboard container towards her.
She took the roll, and started talking about another case. This one about industrial sabotage. I listened carefully and asked lots of questions. And slowly, like the release of a long-held tension, her mind calmed.
I l
ooked up as Paulsen came in the door. “Oh, good,” she said with a smile. “You’re still here.”
I ate another potato with dogged determination. If I was going to be working a double, I’d need the energy.
Turn the page for
two bonus short stories
in new worlds
by Alex Hughes
The Carousel
By Alex Hughes
Behind me, the empty carousel rotated, the figures inside imprisoned in an endless loop.
“Excuse me?”
I glanced up from the magazine. Turned.
A small child looked up at me with big eyes. “Can I ride the horsies?” Behind her, a tired mother stood with a stroller.
Great. Another one. “No, you can’t. We’re closed.”
“It’s rotating,” the mother said in a quiet voice.
“Horsies! I want the horsies!” the little girl said, looking at the nursery rhyme characters with their brass detailing like the carousel was made of jelly beans.
I put the magazine to the side, my stomach sinking. “There aren’t any horsies here, see? Just ducks and nursery rhyme characters. For babies. You don’t want to be a baby, do you?”
As I spoke, to the right Bo Peep’s eyes glinted at me.
“Not a baby!” The kid screwed up her face.
I held out a hand, still keeping an eye on Bo Peep. “Don’t cry.”
The mother had already found the unsteady bench the mall stocked for parents that never came. “Can’t she just ride for awhile?”
“It’s fifteen dollars.” I needed her to go away.
The mother’s brow creased. Finally. The carousel was empty for a reason.
But the little girl jumped up and down. “Please please please please please?”