“You drive like my grandma,” he said.
I had a great comeback, of course, but why waste it on him? “Please follow me, Mr. McKay.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“You can stop any time with the ma'am business. Detective Morgan will suffice for now, since I plan to pass you off to my partner ASAP.”
“Yes, ma'am, Detective Morgan.”
Oh boy, it was going to be a helluva long day. It was already a long day. “This is where we believe Simon Classon was initially assaulted and then abducted by the perp. A neighbor down the road reported him missing, and a couple of deputies secured the scene until Bud and I got here. We later determined that he'd been missing going on thirty-six hours.”
We reached the front steps and I ducked under the crime scene tape and climbed to the porch. McKay clomped up after me and stood looking around while I took out my penknife and slit through the tape securing the door.
I handed him latex gloves and paper booties, snapped on my own, and said, “Got anything yet?”
He was his usual good-humored self. “Might take a minute or two.”
“Right. Just tug on my sleeve when the visions start.”
“You'll probably know without me having to touch you.”
“God is good.”
I unlocked the door and walked inside. He followed but, alas, he was frowning at me now.
“Look, Detective Morgan, I know you don't like anything about me but there's no need for us to keep knifing each other. It won't help matters. I'll be glad to work with this Bud guy, if you're opposed to my being a part of your investigation.”
I looked at him and felt a little bit like a jerk, but only a little. “Sorry. It's not just you. I'm this way with everybody. You'll see.”
“Whew, that's a relief.”
I smiled woodenly to prove I didn't hate him. His smile was the same easy one he'd worn since he'd walked into Charlie's office.
“Well okay, McKay, now we're best buddies. What do you want to do here?”
“Just look around.”
“You got it. I'll just hide and watch.”
“I might need to take off these gloves when I pick up things.”
“Okay. We've impounded the assault weapon and the scene's been swept. Go ahead, I'll watch in awe.”
McKay ignored that. I had a feeling he planned to ignore me from now on. He'd made the overture. He was done. I leaned up against the wall and watched. Actually, I was interested in how a so-called police psychic went about his so-called business. Must be spooky to get visions of murder and mayhem and God knows what else. Like my dreams of late.
He walked to the staircase and placed his right hand on the newel post. Then he moved up a few steps and looked upstairs. He put his hand on the banister and closed his eyes.
“I see him upstairs in bed, reading. He came down here to answer the door.”
Not exactly genius. Bud and I figured that out in five minutes. I waited for him to identify the killer. Now that would impress me.
“He knew him. He let him in. That's how the killer got him.”
I wondered if it was correct etiquette to interrupt visions or if that was a no-no. So I waited until he opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Very good. Now who did you say it was?”
“I didn't get that, not yet.”
“Oh, darn. Now we'll have to keep investigating. But we really do appreciate your help.”
McKay laughed. “You're something else.”
“I'm sure you are, too.” I glanced around. I could smell the dried blood in the carpet, strong and vile in the closed-up house. “What's next?”
“I'd like to look around some more. That okay?”
“Sure.”
He started upstairs with me on his heels. He walked straight down the hall to Simon's bedroom. He stood in the threshold for a few seconds, then moved to the bed. It was just as I'd seen it on that first night.
“Okay if I lie down on the bed?”
“You're not getting kinky on me, are you, McKay?”
“Not yet.” The look he gave me was, well, smoldering, I guess you'd call it. He did smoldering pretty well, too. Too bad I wasn't remotely interested in him.
“Not ever, actually.”
“You married, then?” He was a straightforward psychic.
“Your visions didn't tell you?”
“I have to touch you to get that kind of vibe.” He didn't give me time to think up a proper put-down. “You aren't wearing a wedding ring.”
“I like to keep my private life private.”
“Got it, loud and clear.”
So, back to business he went. He lay down on the bed where the covers were thrown back. He didn't touch anything for a few moments, then he picked up Classon's book and his reading glasses. He closed his eyes and just lay there. Okay, ho-hum, boring, I stifled a yawn. Maybe he was just taking a nap. Poor guy, probably couldn't sleep because of constant disturbing visions. Boy, was I ever having fun in my head today. I shrugged off my keen wit and waited, wondering if he really could help me. But if he gave even an indication of a snore, I was out of there.
Then he jumped up, and I don't mean he sat up, then got to his feet. He jumped to his feet off the bed. Man, that had to be hard to do. He looked strange, upset, not so easygoing anymore.
“What's the matter?”
“He was really unhappy, angry, mean-spirited, full of hatred and bitterness.”
“You got all that from lying on his bed.”
“Yeah, and I'll tell you what, I'm pretty unnerved right now.”
I could tell that. He paced around some, looked out the window. “I feel what they feel sometimes. Physical pain, too. But I'm getting real bad vibes about this guy. He enjoyed hurting people, like it was some kind of hobby.”
“You're right. Simon Classon was not Mr. Congeniality.”
“No, he was despicable.”
There was that word again. “Okay, but he still didn't deserve to die the way he did.”
“Didn't he?”
Now there's a shocker. “You think he did? Maybe I ought to show you the body and see what you think then.”
“Yeah, maybe you should.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Is he still at the morgue?”
I nodded. “Do you mean right now?”
He walked up close and before I could object, he grabbed my hand and held it between both of his. Shocked, I stared at him but his eyes were closed. When I tried to pull away, he let me go and opened his eyes.
“You're in danger, Detective. I see you in the hospital, I see a broken bone in your leg, I see you in dark places, close dark places with spiders and other little creepy things all around you, and I see a head injury on your victim. Here,” he pointed to where Classon's blood icicle had been.
I was surprised by his accuracy, but then I realized his problem. “Sorry, pal, but you're about five months too late on the hospital and that leg prediction. Been there, done that. And we already know about the spiders. How about moving your time-travel dial ahead a few months?”
“You need to take me seriously. Never know, maybe it'd save your life.”
“What makes you think I don't?”
He grinned, and then he looked at his watch as if he'd forgotten something. No Rolex like Black's solid-gold timepiece purchased in Geneva. McKay wore a beat-up old Timex, still ticking I presumed. “I gotta be somewhere now. Can we finish this some other time?”
Now he was making a prediction I could go for. “I guess so. But Charlie wanted me to show you the spot where we found the body. And I was going to show you around the school where Classon worked and see if you get any tingles. I can tell you I did. All of them dark and yucky.”
“No need. I know my way around the academy.”
“Is that right? How?”
“I attended a couple of classes there before I joined the Corps. You're right, you can count the normal folks out there on one hand.”
“You must have less fingers than I do.”
He smiled and headed downstairs.
I followed. “Wait a minute, McKay. When were you there?”
But McKay had his helmet in place and was revving up the chopper. Purposely drowning me out, I had a feeling. “I said, when, McKay?”
He took off, wheeling around in the middle of the road and heading off north as if he couldn't wait to get away from me.
Well, hey, pal, the feeling's mutual.
THIRTEEN
By the time I pulled up and parked at the academy, all was quiet and day had turned to night. The clock on the old church said 5:15. Maybe all the Mensa kiddies were at dinner in the reasonably priced food court. I suspected I'd find Bud there, too, since that was where they kept the food. I braved frigid air and slippery surfaces as I tramped down curving, partially cleared sidewalks toward Blue Building. But there were so many footsteps from the students playing, I guess, that I could use them to escape the slick spots. I was right, of course. Bud was there, having something to eat. A woman sat next to him. A fairly young woman, maybe close to forty, dressed informally in a tight black sweater, and even tighter black jeans tucked into tall black boots with four-inch spike heels. She had five gold necklaces of different lengths hanging around her neck.
Bud finally noticed me. “Hey, Morgan, have a seat.”
I sat down beside Bud, curious who he was making time with now. “Am I interrupting anything?”
“Nah, this is Beulah Asholt. She's vice-director here. Ms. Asholt, my partner, Detective Claire Morgan. “
Asholt stuck out her hand. Long cranberry-colored nails that looked impressively lethal. Obviously she never had to type her own memos. She squeezed my hand like we were a possible item and gave me one big, fake grin. “Pleasure to meet you, ma'am. Bud's been tellin' me all about ya'll's investigation.”
I hoped to hell not. “You're from the south, too, I gather.”
“Gee, how'd ya know?”
Her accent was much more severe than Bud's and more embarrassing to listen to, I might add. Problem was she didn't know it.
“Where are you from, Ms. Asholt? Georgia, too? Like Bud?”
“Oh, no. I hail from the great state of Alabama. But I tell ya, it's good to run into a brother from the land of Dixie, like Detective Davis, here.”
I waited a second or two for them to bust out in “I wish I was in the land of cotton” and sway together under crossed Confederate flags. It didn't happen. No flags available, I guess.
“How long have you worked here, Ms. Asholt?”
“Since last summer. August first, to be exact.”
She pronounced it summuh. She pronounced all her
r
-ending words that way. I didn't like her much already. But hey, I didn't like anybody lately. I was becoming antisocial. I was in a real bad mood, too. I didn't like professors getting eaten up by spiders, I guess. Or psychics telling me my days were numbered. Or assholes who ran pseudo prep schools. After admitting my problems, however, I tried to lighten up. I smiled, a grim caricature that resembled an annoyed skeleton. Time to get to know Ms. Southern Belle a little better.
“How do you like it here at the academy?”
“I just luv it. I luv playin' at office politics. And I'm damn good at it, too.” She laughed and winked as if Bud and I should find that admirable.
I said, “And office politics reign supreme around here, I bet.”
“Oh, yeah, is that ever true. I learned right off what I had to do to survive around here. Kiss Simon Classon's butt and you'll get whatever ya want.”
“Really?”
“Yes'm.”
Yes'm? Bo Peep was truly grating on my nerves now. I liked southern accents but Bud's southern charm was just about the only deep-south drawl I was going to put up with. Maybe because Bud's was for real. This lady was as phony as a three-dolluh bill.
“So you're sayin' you're a brownnoser.” Bud was frowning, seemed slightly put off himself now, as if Asholt was no longer such a welcome member of his southern charm school.
“Sure, that's the only way ya get ahead in places like this. Not just me, pretty much everybody around here. Classon told people what to do, and trust me, they did it, or else he'd get 'em. I fired ten people right aftuh I got here just 'cause he called down and told me to. I'm no fool. I know which way the wind's blowin' and so I use it to my personal advantage.”
I said, “Gee, you sound like a real jerk.” Sometimes I'm downright forthright.
Asholt seemed stunned for a moment, as if I'd slapped her across the face with a glove and challenged her to a duel in the back lot of Tara Plantation. Too bad I couldn't. It would be serious fun. Maybe I should. I thought about it. She was gathering her wits now, no doubt thinking, uh-oh, gotta brownnose, gotta brownnose, do it, do it, quick, quick, think up something good to say to soothe the ruffled-up detective missus.
“Now, Miss Claire . . .”
She pronounced that Miz Clayruh, and that did it for me. “Look, ma'am, don't call me Miz anything. You got that? I'm not Scarlett O'Hara and neither are you. This is a homicide investigation, and I'm the detective in charge. I prefer you to call me Detective Morgan and just park that whining southern accent because it doesn't cut it with me. Do you understand me or do I have to put it in Alabaman?”
Shocked, yes, she was. Her practiced phony charm wasn't working on that mean ole Yankee gal, gee whillikers, yee haw, and let's go make some praline candies. But she got her nose back in joint real quick. “I am truly sorry, Detective Morgan, if I offended you. It was unintentional, I promise you.”
Yeah, I'm sure. Her southern accent had balanced itself to a normal rendition of Birmingham environs, if I was any judge of southern climes. Just as long as she never, ever called me Miz Clayruh again. I felt hostile, bristling even, and I blamed it primarily on how much I loathed and detested brownnosers, especially proud, self-admitted ones. One type you didn't meet a whole helluva lot. Only a very self-confident, well-practiced suck-up would openly admit it, I'd say. I controlled my bone-deep aversion to the woman. “No problem, ma'am. Now, I need access to your student records starting today and going back to the first day the academy opened its doors. Will that be a problem?”
“Of course not. In fact, you can get that information in my office. I'll need to check with Director Johnstone first, you understand.”
“Okay. Why don't you scurry up there and see what you can do?”
Bud looked askance at me as I watched Ms. South of the Mason-Dixon leave in a real hurry. “Wow, Claire. That went well. What'd you have for lunch? Three-inch nails?”
“C'mon, Bud, you can't like her.”
“What's like got to do with it? Hell, I don't like anybody around here. But I'm tryin' to be civil. And she was a big fan of Bear Bryant. Said she actually met him once at a U. of A. publicity day. Now that's something.”
“Oh, well, now I've changed my opinion. She must be Mother Teresa.”
“You're in one helluva foul mood.”
Right. And I knew I was, tried half-heartedly to analyze my funk for a second but Bud beat me to the punch.
“You miss Black, don't you? Sleepin' alone at night is makin' you all grouchy, huh?”
“Shut up. And that's not it.” I glanced around the cafeteria. “I don't like being on this campus. I don't like the people who work here. It gives me bad vibes that I can't shake. You know, like I should do the world a favor, throw all these people in jail, and swallow the key.”
“God, Claire, what's wrong with you? Shake it off already. We've got a job to do.”
I glared at him, but he was right. I was being unprofessional. Time to get it together and put some serious brakes on my personal opinions. “Sorry. You're right. The way Classon died has made me edgy. I'll get myself up to snuff.”
Bud brightened. “Up to snuff. Know where that comes from?”
“Oh God, please make him stop.”
“Yes'm, Ms. Clayruh, way back in the 1600s everybody used snuff. That's finely powdered tobacco, if you don't know, and lots of professional baseball players use it nowadays, but they're changing to Dubble Bubble now because Skoal causes cancer. Anyway, back then people could sniff it to see if it was good quality. So, if something's good, it's up to snuff.”
I leaned back in my chair. “I am so glad to know all that, Bud. It's going to help in this investigation, I can feel it.”
Bud shook his head, then he said, “You hungry? Maybe if you ate something, you'd feel better. Act better, even. How about a cappuccino? Here, let me go get you one. And by the way, Merry Christmas and all that good cheer and peace on earth stuff.”
I watched him stroll over to the cappuccino machine. He turned, waved, and blew me a kiss. I couldn't stifle my smile. I shifted my attention to the kids eating at the surrounding tables. They all were having a great time, laughing and talking, acting like regular goofy teenagers. I probably acted like that once a long time ago before people I loved started dying off one by one. I ended that train of thought in its tracks, and refocused on the chattering students. I wondered if they knew about all the ugly stuff going on at the highest levels up in Director Jesus's office. I thought not, but they probably wouldn't care. Probably didn't even know who the director was, probably thought he was some Bahamian sandal salesman floating around campus.
Bud was back. “Here you go. Drink this and turn back into the real Claire Morgan. Then you can tell me what put ya in such an insult-slinging mood. Hell, I bet our friend Beulah has puncture wounds in her forehead.”
“Sorry. I just want the guy who did this, and we're not exactly getting anywhere fast.” I picked up the hot coffee that Bud set down in front of me. I took a careful sip, and it tasted good, sweet. “He's going to do it again, Bud. I know it. Even the psychic knows it.”
“What psychic?”
“That's right, I haven't told you the good news.” I filled him in on Joe McKay, and Charlie's decree on letting him horn in on our investigation. Bud stared at me, eyes all round and disbelieving, as if I was one of George Lucas's Cantina creatures.
“You are kidding me, right? Not funny.”
“That's what I told Charlie. He disagreed.”
“Man, this doesn't sound like Charlie. He always pooh-poohed all those medium shows and talkin'-to-ghosts stuff.”
I'd never in my life heard Bud say pooh-poohed, not in any context, but I let it pass. I was back to my usual agreeable self.
“Unfortunately, not this time. He ordered me to take the so-called psychic to Classon's house and give him a look-see. That's where I've been so long.”
“No shit? Did he come up with anything?”
“Oh, yeah. Get this. He saw spiders, head injuries, you're in danger, detective, you know, the usual ESP crap.”
“He said you're in danger?”
“Yeah, but don't fall for that vision-quest stuff. He's not for real.”
“Hey, I'm not going to laugh in his face. Sometimes they get it right. You ever see
Psychic Detectives
on Court TV?”
“The only thing I'm in danger of is losing control and punching Beulah in the nose. But I'm almost over that.”
“And to think meeting Bear Bryant was wasted on her.”
“Gotta raise your standards for lunch companions. Come on, let's go find Scarlett and snoop around in her files.”
We trekked over to Asholt's office. Darkness cloaked the buildings in shadows, and inside the quadrangle, the church clock bonged six times. Mrs. Harper, Asholt's secretary, a heavyset lady with gray hair pulled back in a tight bun and held in place with an unlikely pair of black-lacquered Chinese chopsticks, was efficiency personified. She was finishing up her work for the day, but she showed us with precise, no-nonsense instructions where the student files were and how to access them correctly. She said Birmingham Belle was in conference with Jesus, and my ears instantly started burning. I waited for an irate call to come in from Charlie any second now, because truth be told, I was out of line with the woman. Getting angry and personal with her was unprofessional. I wouldn't do it again, uh-uh. I glanced around Asholt's office, looking for Confederate flags hanging on the walls or old movie posters from
Gone with the Wind.
She'd probably superimposed her face over Vivien Leigh's. Instead, there were lots of framed graduation certificates hanging around, most of them from Podunk junior colleges in rural nowhereland. Figured.
Half an hour later, it was Bud that got the call from Charlie. A command performance, no less. His turn to meet Psychic Joe and show him the murder scene. I told him not to let the guy touch him, and he said I didn't have to worry. He took off, and I sat down behind Mrs. Harper's computer and typed in Joe McKay. He'd told me he'd been a student here at some point in time, and I needed to check that our. I minimized the screen when Ms. Beulah waltzed in, said a pleasant, drawl-less “Hello, Detective, anything I can do to help?” I politely declined, and she looked relieved, snatched her red coat with a sequined Christmas wreath on the lapel, flipped her green muffler around her neck in a fashionable drape, then slunk like a kicked dog the hell out of there. I often have that effect on people, southern phonies, or otherwise.
Then the closing-time exodus began in earnest, and the staff disappeared with all the urgency of Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, only earlier. Just the way I liked it. Jesus stuck his head in Beulah's office door and told me I should make myself at home but he was quitting for the day because of the dinner he was hosting at his house at 7:30. He didn't invite me. Bud, either. Luckily he didn't chastise me for jumping onto Asholt with both my hobnailed boots, either. A pleasant surprise.
The building grew silent and dark to match the waning day's journey into night. I could snoop to my heart's content. Joseph McKay's name bounced up on the screen. I read his statistics, found that he'd been enrolled at the academy almost fifteen years ago. Everything was pretty much fill-in-the-blank personal statistics, six foot one, 185 pounds, blond hair, blue eyes, et cetera, et cetera. There was no box to check for ESP or psychic whiz. Then I hit pay dirt. The “other comments” line. Hey, hey, hey.